Residents already planning for Fourth

Alex Coolman

WEST NEWPORT -- Resident concerns about having enough time to prepare

for Fourth of July revelry have inspired a community association to take

up the subject tonight.

A forum held by the West Newport Beach Assn. will include

representatives from the police department. The meeting is an annual

tradition, said association president Alan Silcock, but it doesn’t

usually take place so early in the year.

Silcock said the group stepped up its schedule because residents said

the old meeting time in June didn’t give them enough time to get ready

for the annual crush of holiday partyers.

“That’s pretty late [in the year],” he said. “They wanted to have a

dialogue with the police department earlier so there could be an exchange

of ideas.”

Areas of Newport Beach near the water are typically the site of

considerable Independence Day partying, with a correspondingly

considerable level of arrests.

In the 1980s, police said, it was common for 300 to 400 people to be

arrested in Newport Beach over a particularly boisterous holiday weekend.

These days, though, the numbers are much lower. In the four days

leading up to July 4, 2000, cops collared about 150 people on

party-related arrests.

“Basically, that’s what we have to measure success,” said Sgt. Jim

Kaminsky, an officer who works on the “problem-oriented policing” program

for West Newport and will attend tonight’s forum.

But low arrest levels aren’t the only criteria the police -- or the

community -- cares about.

What matters, said both Silcock and Kaminsky, is the effort to come up

with a policing approach that not only lowers arrest levels but also

produces a moderately civilized holiday party scene.

Silcock said it’s that second goal that doesn’t seem to have been met

yet.

“Overall, it went pretty well last year,” he said of the Fourth of

July holiday. “The residents understand that and accept that, but they’re

a little upset about people urinating in the streets,” vomiting in yards

and otherwise behaving like drunken boors.

Silcock said he hopes to find out what solutions could address those

problems at tonight’s forum.

“Could they bring in porta-potties? I don’t know. It’s a good idea,

maybe,” he said.

Kaminsky said the department takes public obnoxiousness seriously,

even if it’s just a drunk answering the call of nature in an alley.

“We take the stance that while we don’t mind anybody having a party,

we want everyone to enjoy the Fourth in a safe manner,” Kaminsky said.

“If laws are broken, we have to enforce the law.”

Whether the panel results in any dramatic changes of the police’s

enforcement approach, Silcock said he thinks there’s value in airing

resident’s opinions.

“It’s a matter of letting people vent,” he said. “Let them talk with

each other and let them listen to each other.”

FYI

The meeting on the Fourth of July will take place at 7 p.m. in the

Friends Meeting Room of the Newport Beach Public Library, 1000 Avocado

Ave.