Police Presence Puts Brakes on Sunday Cruising : Crime: Santa Ana credits a four-month-long program with bringing peace to a once-overrun South Bristol Street.

Finally, Sunday nights here are quiet.

The Sunday night ritual that drew up to 8,000 drivers from Orange, Los Angeles, San Diego and other counties to cruise an eight-block area around South Bristol Street has ended, police say, because of program begun in March involving more than 100 officers on some nights.

Since 1991, 17 deaths and more than 100 assaults have been linked to the cruising, police said. But mostly the phenomenon was a social one, a place for boys and girls to meet, Lt. Mike Foote said.

Santa Ana adopted an anti-cruising ordinance in 1989, Foote said. But the police had limited success in enforcing it, in part because they didn’t have enough personnel.

The four-month-long Cruising Enforcement Program, which cost Santa Ana $150,000, involved officers from various law enforcement agencies plus local businesses and residents.

Foote said police met with residents and asked them to alert police to the location of cruisers. The city also blocked off or restricted access to some streets. And they asked business owners to chain off their parking lots, close early, and turn out parking lot lights.

“If there’s no lights, you can’t socialize,” said Foote, who supervised the program. “If your brand new wax job and your paint job don’t sparkle, and you can’t look at that girl across from you, what good is it?”

Since March, he said, police have issued 4,800 citations to Sunday night cruisers, made 250 arrests and impounded 260 cars.

Foote said extra officers still patrol the area, but declined to say how many. Although the streets now are mostly quiet, Foote acknowledged that cruising could return. But police now know how to handle the problem, he said.

James Kim, who works in his father’s liquor store in the heart of the old cruising area, said that since the cruising ritual ended, the street has calmed.

“To be honest with you, we might be losing a little money,” since the cruising stopped, the 27-year-old Kim said. “But compared to the mental stress, it’s worth it.”

On Monday night, the City Council recognized Foote and three other officers who organized the program.

Councilman Ted R. Moreno said of the cruisers, “We let them know we mean business. We don’t want you here. Get out of here.”

Mayor Miguel A. Pulido Jr. quipped, “I used to cruise there, by the way.”

Police said they frankly don’t know where the cruisers went.

The 45% or so from outside Orange County probably just cruise areas closer to home now, Foote said. But he was at a loss to explain where the Orange County cruisers have gone.

“I don’t know that anything can be done, other than growing up, that will totally stop cruising,” Foote said. “But we’ve dealt with the motivation to cruise in this county.”