Arrests and citations up on the Fourth

Deepa Bharath

Police in both cities had a busy holiday weekend arresting violators

and handing out citations, officials said.

Newport Beach police arrested 113 people between 6 p.m. Saturday

and midnight Sunday, Sgt. Steve Shulman said. The total wasn’t out of

the ordinary for the popular beach town but was a little higher than

last year, he said.

“We had 103 arrests last year,” he said. “We estimated there were

fewer people on the peninsula this year. But there was a large number

of parties and gatherings.”

The people were cooperative this year, including the rental

companies previously blamed by local residents for leasing their

beachfront homes to raucous partyers, Shulman said.

“We were able to get everyone more aware about the rules that

needed to be obeyed,” he said. “We had very few noise complaints this

year too.”

Officers wrote 13 disturbance advisory cards this year, about half

the number they wrote last year, Shulman said.

“Overall, it was uneventful,” he said. “We didn’t have any serious

incidents or injuries.”

Most of the incidents and arrests were alcohol-related as always,

Shulman said.

“More than 83% of the arrests happened on July 4,” he said. “More

than 84% of those arrested were male and about 23% of those arrested

were Newport Beach residents.”

In Costa Mesa, law enforcement officials were more focused on

illegal fireworks. The city is one of the few in Orange County that

permits “safe and sane” fireworks. This year, police officers and

firefighters teamed up to hand out citations to those who were

lighting illegal fireworks and others who were setting them off in

the city’s parks.

The combined efforts led to 40 citations over the holiday weekend,

a significant increase over last year, according to Costa Mesa Police

Lt. John FitzPatrick.

“That’s a lot of tickets,” he said.

The high number of citations was because of “the heightened

awareness to illegal fireworks this year,” FitzPatrick said.