A LOOK AHEAD * The popularity of a growing number of glitzy watering holes is beginning to rub some nearby residents the wrong way. City officials want a better mix of businesses for the area. : Downtown’s Upturn Rattles Hermosa Beach

It’s an especially cool December Saturday night, but the young, exuberant crowds lined up outside some of Hermosa Beach’s hottest nightspots don’t seem to mind--or even notice--the chill in the air.

They preen and laugh and flirt, sometimes jostling each other, these dressed-up twentysomethings. It’s not yet 11 p.m., still more than three hours until the bars close, and the evening is just now getting into full swing.

The revelers are waiting for a spot to open up inside Sangria, Aloha Sharkeez, Patrick Molloy’s or another of the trendy watering holes lining Pier Plaza, a beach-side pedestrian block that is the centerpiece of the city’s downtown revitalization efforts.

In the nearly 2 1/2 years since the city redesigned the last block of Pier Avenue and closed it to vehicular traffic, the square has become a weekend-night mecca for hip fun-seekers from throughout the South Bay and beyond.

But the young visitors who have fueled the revitalization also have regularly disturbed townsfolk, especially at the 2 a.m. mandatory closing time. That’s when the revelers stream noisily into adjacent residential streets or wander tipsily past the million-dollar-and-up beachfront homes lining the Strand, looking for their cars--or another party.

“Our busiest times are between 2 and 3 a.m.,” said Hermosa Beach Police Det. Don Jones, who often takes a shift as one of the four officers assigned to foot patrol downtown every weekend night.

“A lot of people don’t want this to be a party town. This isn’t the image we want for our kids,” said Steve Hunt, a Strand resident, parent of two teenagers and a leader of Residents for a Better Hermosa.

The group’s yearlong battle to tone down the young adult party scene around downtown thrust the issue into local politics. So as the city prepares to embark on the next phases of its revitalization efforts, the plaza’s popularity has generated much debate about what to do now.

“We needed to get people down here . . . and certainly we have done that,” said Mayor Julie Oakes of the city’s initial efforts to rejuvenate a then-stagnant downtown. Restaurants that serve alcohol were the main replacements for a moribund drugstore, a lagging clothing shop and the seedy bars that drew a smaller but rougher crowd.

“Now,” added Oakes, echoing sentiments that are fast becoming a mantra among civic leaders, “it’s time to balance out the uses.”

How to do that is another matter. One City Council member is making a controversial push for a moratorium on new restaurants and bars in hopes of encouraging more retailers to locate on the plaza. Another suggests formulating a detailed plan, possibly with tax incentives for the types of businesses deemed desirable, including stores, offices and perhaps a movie theater.

Other leaders favor forming a business improvement district to promote broader uses downtown without further government controls.

The debate in this tightly packed city of about 20,000 people is a local variation on the theme that scores of cities have faced as they have tried to reinvent their aging downtowns.

Elizabeth Jackson, president of the International Downtown Assn. in Washington, D.C., said the successful rehabilitation of such districts requires care and strategy.

“It takes hard work and thoughtful planning to find the right balance, to be sure that when something becomes hip and happening, it doesn’t erase what makes the place unique and turn it into a sort of United States of Generica,” Jackson said.

With retailers increasingly shunning enclosed malls for open-air, village-type atmospheres--and given the success of Old Pasadena and Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade--Hermosa Beach seems perfectly positioned to reinvigorate its downtown.

The 1.3-square-mile city has been blessed with picture-postcard topography: Pier Avenue slopes gently westward downhill, bisecting a flat, easily strollable few blocks spreading north and south along Hermosa Avenue. It ends in the broad, palm-lined plaza--dotted with restaurants with outdoor eating areas and a smattering of shops--that reaches to the beach and the soon-to-be-restored municipal pier.

“The plaza has become the ‘living room’ of the community, a gathering spot where we can all come together,” said Councilman John Bowler, who has lived and worked in the downtown area for about 25 years. “I’m down here all the time, and I see senior citizens, people pushing baby strollers, all kinds of people.”

Indeed, the plaza has become a popular venue for periodic community celebrations, such as the upcoming New Year’s Eve party that the city plans to throw for residents. The event will feature an 18-piece band and a fireworks display, set for 9 p.m. to encourage family attendance.

But Bowler and other city officials agree that the plaza is not as busy as it could be during the daytime and that the city needs to find better ways to address the concerns about weekend nights.

“We’ve been very successful at drawing the 21-to-30 crowd of college students and young professionals, and it’s been very good and has benefited the city, “ Bowler said. “But it’s a little one-dimensional, and we are taking steps now to bring in a more diverse crowd.”

The downtown district provides nearly 30% of Hermosa Beach’s $9.5 million in annual revenue, said City Manager Stephen Burrell.

All but $8 million of the $60 million invested in fixing up the downtown area has come from private sources, including the tenants and owners of the vintage, pre-1940 downtown buildings, Burrell said. They brought the structures up to state earthquake safety standards and renovated the storefronts. The new owner of the former Bijou Theater plans to lease space to retail tenants when seismic work on the building is done.

A recent Los Angeles County assessor’s report cited the downtown revitalization as a major factor in the 10.5% climb in Hermosa Beach’s real estate values.

Civic officials expect that a just-opened, 400-space parking structure a block north of the plaza will help boost daytime business and aid in keeping late-night restaurant-goers off residential streets.

In addition, the city has other revitalization projects in various design or planning phases, including new lighting and broader sidewalks for the upper blocks of Pier Avenue.

Downtown businesswoman Patricia Spiritus, who with two partners opened the Hamilton Gregg Brewworks, a do-it-yourself microbrewery, in 1993, is spearheading efforts to launch a business improvement district downtown.

Such zones, increasingly popular across the nation, provide a mechanism to manage, improve and promote commercial areas. They are usually paid for by merchants in the district.

Spiritus disputes the popular notion that downtown Hermosa Beach is top-heavy with bars and restaurants. She recently completed a survey of all 241 businesses downtown and found that just 25% are eateries, including the 6% that are restaurants with full bars. The rest include offices, gift shops, clothing stores, markets and beauty salons.

“We have a really great mix, something we can really build on,” said Spiritus, who opposes the restaurant moratorium proposed by Councilman Sam Edgerton.

While civic leaders sort out downtown’s future, it falls to the Police Department to deal with the current situation. Chief Val Straser said he tries to be proactive, sitting down with new restaurant managers and holding meetings with business owners and residents, for example.

The department stations two police cars at the plaza on weekend nights, and officers on foot patrol keep their profiles high.

On this cool December night, Det. Jones teams up with Officer Nick Statis as they walk among the young crowds, checking parking lots and monitoring the lines for signs of trouble.

They bust a band member foolish enough to use his break to roll a marijuana joint in his parked car. They summon one of the several cabs waiting for fares along Hermosa Avenue to Ein Stein’s two blocks away, where a patron has had too much to drink and is being sent home.

When the officers direct two young women to pour out the drinks they are carrying from one nightspot to another, they meet little resistance.

“Awww, man,” says one, then quickly joins her friend in dumping the contents of the red paper cups into a sidewalk planter.