Tony Dodero -- From the Newsroom
It’s all eerily familiar.
West Newport residents gearing up for this Wednesday’s annual Fourth
of July beer and bikini fest, in which thousands upon thousands of young
Independence Day celebrators will converge upon the beaches and Seashore
Drive looking for some summer fun.
Somehow, I’ve heard this all before.
Of course so have the people who call this place home 365 days a year
and don’t see any fun in public urination, drunken teens fighting and
cursing and armies of skateboarders and bikers advancing like Roman
warriors.
So when the call came out for community meetings and discussions with
the police, it felt like, as Yogi Berra would say, deja vu all over
again.
Back in 1992, West Newport had a pretty big problem. The Seashore
Drive craziness had reached a crescendo and three people were shot, one
stabbed and several arrested in a Fourth of July melee at the beach.
And suddenly, the people who live with the noise and trash and rowdies
had the rapt attention of the City Council -- and more importantly, the
attention of former Councilwoman and Mayor Jan Debay, herself a longtime
West Newport resident.
I caught up with the former mayor this week to talk about those days.
West Newport does have an allure that sometimes makes people forget
that it is indeed a community smack dab on the beach. And Debay was no
exception to that when she moved to that side of town with her family.
“We came from a typical neighborhood and I really had no idea what it
was like,” she said of the beachfront community that is now home to king
partyer Dennis Rodman.
After the 1992 mess, Debay, former Councilman John Hedges and former
Deputy City Manager Ken Delino got busy on a West Newport July 4
committee and came up with strong sanctions for the revelers.
For the 1993 Fourth of July plans, the idea of erecting chain-link
fence barricades on Seashore was born, along with tough new noise
ordinances, a caller complaint hotline, better trash pickup and tough
punishments for renters who get out of hand.
Real estate agents started writing provisions within their leases to
weekly renters that if there was a complaint about the tenants, they
would have to leave immediately.
And once the property management people notify the tenants, the police
have carte blanche to enforce that rule and kick the rowdies out.
Debay said most rental agencies abide by these rules and only one or
two holdouts refuse to monitor their tenants.
In recent years, property owners have painted yellow lines to indicate
no parking zones and that has improved that situation immensely, Debay
said.
And despite last year’s minor flare-up, it seems most of the hard work
has paid off.
“I think it’s better,” Debay said of the area that was once derisively
called, “the war zone,” although she wants part of the credit for the
improvements.
The key, of course, have been the barricades, which basically put a
chokehold on the main lifeline for the partyers, skaters and bikers who
clog up Seashore Drive and created havoc.
“When the barricades went up, they couldn’t parade up and down
Seashore anymore,” Debay said. “Even though it’s not fun to have
chain-link fences up, it served a purpose.”
But Debay said everyone wasn’t convinced that first year that the
barricades would work.
“The cops were worried,” she said. “They thought people would be
tearing down fences.”
Of course that didn’t happen.
Don’t be fooled, though. There will always be a few who get out of
control, and there will always be crowds on the Fourth of July. Big
crowds. But for now, West Newport has tackled many of its problems and
the residents there owe a debt of gratitude to Debay and other city
leaders who made things better.
Take it from Debay, who moved away from her West Newport home but now
yearns for those days.
“I miss the ocean, I really do,” she said. “Our kids grew up and left
and we went to a condo and I’ve been sorry ever since. I’d be back there
in a minute if I could.”
* TONY DODERO is the editor. His column appears on Mondays. If you
have story ideas or concerns about news coverage please send messages
either via e-mail to tony.dodero@latimes.com or by phone at 949-574-4258.
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