O.C. Fair Longer, Louder, and So Is Neighbors’ Sigh

Every July, the neighbors brace for the bash. Cars line the streets, like at a block party, and after they drive off, homeowners are left to pick up the beer bottles and other rubbish.

But since 1992, neighbors of the Orange County Fairgrounds could take comfort that after 17 days, fair revelers went home for good.

Not this year.

Today marks the beginning of an unprecedented third week for the fair, whose 21-day run ends Sunday. Neighbors get reprieves on Mondays, when the event is closed, and fair officials and police say they have heard few grumblings about traffic and noise.

Still, the patience of some neighbors has worn thin.

Two weeks is a headache, they say; three weeks is a migraine. They’re starting to wonder: Is it over yet?

“I mean, this is kind of ridiculous -- three weeks is just too long,” said Keith Moran, 35, a contractor who can hear riders’ screams from his Presidio Drive lawn. “It’s like they’re trying to squeeze every penny out of it.”

Fair officials have struggled for years with how best to placate their neighbors, right down to giving them 20 free-admission tickets for their patience.

The goodwill has paid off. “You know it’s a wild party. But you know it’s going to be for a few nights and then it’s done,” said Vicki Lombardo, 54, a nurse.

This year was particularly knotty, however, with the reopening of Pacific Amphitheatre, quieted for nearly eight years by noise lawsuits, and a fair that parties four days longer.

Officials hoped that lengthening the fair’s run would thin daily attendance, which sometimes reached 80,000, close to the population of Buena Park. Since visitors would cram their vehicles along the curbs of the Mesa del Mar and College Park neighborhoods, the extra days were intended to reduce congestion.

The strategy may have worked. Costa Mesa police say streets have been less gnarled, possibly because cumulative fair attendance this year is down. As of Sunday, 653,855 people had walked through the gates, nearly 85,000 fewer than at this same point last year.

The streets in College Park, protected by “No Fair Parking” signs, have been nearly vacant, said Cathy Jo Liebel, 38, who runs a home day-care business on Bucknell Road. “It’s not like a herd of cattle coming through here.”

Presidio Drive, though, was lined Sunday with several dozen vehicles. Mesa del Mar residents said only two or three belonged to residents.

“If anyone else had a party like this, you’d bust them,” said art teacher Chris Stevens, 48, whose family has lived in the same house since 1967. “You endure it because there’s nothing you can do.”

More vexing than the traffic, neighbors said, are the layers of sound thumping from the Heritage and Sun stages, and the Citizens Business Bank Arena, where Rick Springfield and the Bangles played this year.

Now Pacific Amphitheatre is back, with fewer seats plus technology designed to contain the boom that once infuriated neighbors. The fair’s sound designer, Gary Hardesty, said sound monitoring in the neighborhoods shows the amphitheater’s music to be consistently under the limit set by the city, only adding the decibel equivalent of a conversation to the neighborhood’s existing sounds.

Police said only one noise complaint has been lodged, during the July 16 Duran Duran concert at the amphitheater. Fair officials said they’ve had four complaints about the Citizens Business Bank Arena: two July 15, during the Little River Band concert; and one July 16, when Blue Oyster Cult performed, and another Friday during the Fabulous Thunderbirds concert. Last year, fair officials say, they received two noise complaints during the entire fair run.

Simultaneous shows have neighbors’ ears buzzing. “I can stand by my upstairs bedroom window and hear the whole concert,” said Teresa Belanger, 40, a homemaker whose Mesa del Mar house has double-paned windows.

Sunday featured the salsa sounds of Festival Latino all day from the arena. At night, the Port City Washboard Wizards joined in from Heritage Stage, Proud Mary jammed at the Sun and Bob Dylan growled and groaned during his performance at the amphitheater.

All the while, rides whirred and riders shrieked.

Fair officials are considering applying amphitheater technology to cap sound at the arena stage next year, Hardesty said.

For the coming week, however, Keith Moran’s wife, Kelly, 31, expects to toss and turn at night. A light sleeper, the sixth-grade teacher runs a fan to drown out the noise and hopes to not wake up to too many bottles in her frontyard.

“We’re always like, ‘All right, Mondays!’ ” she said. “It’s quiet and you can go to bed early.

“It’ll be like that once this finally ends.”