Picketing up the pieces

Jennifer Kho

COSTA MESA -- Waving picket signs, wearing their warm-up suits and

screaming at passing cars in front of a Mobil gas station Monday morning,

the Estancia High School girls basketball team protested the loss of

their biggest fund-raiser of the year.

“Honk if you support us!” they yelled. “Don’t buy your gas here

because Mobil doesn’t support us. Go to Texaco or something.”

The girls said that the gas station wouldn’t let them have a fireworks

stand this year in their usual spot behind the station on an adjacent

property.

“We won’t have a girls basketball program if we don’t have any money,”

said player Krystal Mino. “We love basketball. It’s our life. It’s what

we’re good at.”

“We just want to play ball,” Tricia Wase, another player, added.

Head coach Paul Kirby said the loss of the stand, which usually brings

them $5,000 each year, means that the team will not be able to play at

three tournaments it was planning to attend this summer.

The program also does not have money for uniforms for the next season.

“There are uniforms, tournament entry fees, basketballs, shoes,

concessions for the snack bar and coaching stipends,” he said. “We only

get $300 from the school. This is our biggest fund-raiser. I’m not sure

what we’re going to do now.”

The team, which has had a stand in the same location for five years,

found out it would not be allowed to have its fund-raiser there only two

weeks ago, said Michele Wilson, the fund-raising president for the team’s

booster club.

Now it is too late for the team to find another location for the stand

and, because it already paid the $350 fee required for a city permit, the

team actually lost money in its fund-raising attempt, Wilson said.

“It would have been different if they had told us six months ago,” she

said. “They didn’t get back to us and now we have no other options.”

Wilson added that team members don’t believe the stand is a hazard --

and neither does the city.

“We don’t think it’s a hazard because the city had the blueprints and

had to approve the location and didn’t have any problem with it,” she

said. “Why would Mobil? I would understand if it was close to the gas

station, but there’s always been a gas station there and it’s never been

a problem.”

Mobil Oil Company, which bought the property from C.J. Segerstroms &

Sons last July, did deny the team’s request for stand space because

fireworks would present a safety hazard for the gas station, said Adam

Mazboudi, the station’s manager.

“We would support anything else, but not a fireworks stand,” he said.

“If they wanted to do a car wash or sell other things, that would be

fine, but not fireworks. Fireworks and gas just don’t mix and safety is a

No. 1 concern. We don’t want the station blowing up when someone is

filling up their gas.”

Now that Mobil Oil Company owns the property, there are also liability

issues, said cashier Gary Sabara.

“Now it’s all Mobil property, so if anything happens, it’s all on

Mobil,” he said.

Mazboudi said that the protest was costing the station business.

“It’s unfair,” he said. “They should know better. They know what kind

of business we have and that it wouldn’t go well with fireworks.”

Mazboudi also noted that the team did not apply for the stand until a

month ago.

The team plans to picket until Mobil changes its mind about the

fireworks stand, said player Desiree Wilson.

Xochitl Byfield, another player, said she would be back again today.

“We were the city champs this year and they still won’t support us,”

she said. “We do pretty well. We sacrifice our time, on and off the

court, and we just don’t get support. Maybe we’ll still get money

somehow.”