Those were the days: Drunks and fighters

ROBERT GARDNER

* EDITOR’S NOTE: The Daily Pilot has agreed to republish The Verdict,

the ever-popular column written for many years by retired Corona Del

Mar jurist and historian Robert Gardner, in exchange for donations to

the Surfrider Foundation. This particular column was originally

published in March 2003.

I was relieved to read that the people charged with Orange

County’s most recent multimillion-dollar theft, more than $7 million

I believe, came not from Newport Beach but from Mission Viejo. For a

while, I thought Newport Beach had a corner on the

multimillion-dollar theft market.

‘Twas not always so. During my career as a deputy district

attorney (1937-38) and as this town’s city judge (1938-1941 and

1945-1947), I can remember only two theft cases arising in Newport

Beach, and they certainly weren’t in the multimillion-dollar class.

Far from it. In my day, Newport Beach seemed to specialize in such

nontheft, antisocial activities as rum running, bootlegging, illegal

gambling plus considerable over-consumption of alcohol and fighting.

We filled the jail every Saturday night with drunks and fighters, but

no thieves.

The first Newport Beach theft case I can remember occurred when I

was a deputy district attorney. A man was charged with stealing a

fish net. The biggest problem in the case was proving that the net

was worth $200, the amount necessary for a grand theft conviction.

However, the thing that stands out in my memory is that after being

sentenced to prison, the guy was dragged out of court screaming that

when he got out he was going to kill Chief of Police Rowland

Hodgkinson and me. I’m still alive and Hodge died of natural causes,

so that man is either the oldest inmate of the prison system or he

had a bad memory.

The other theft occurred during my stint as city judge. It

certainly didn’t qualify as grand theft. The guy stole a manhole

cover. I suppose that today those things are called people-hole

covers, but in those thoughtless, sexist days they were called

manhole covers. I’ve been racking my feeble brain trying to remember

why he stole a manhole cover or what he intended to do with it after

he stole it. I guess there are some things in life that simply defy

explanation.

So there we have it -- a fish net and a manhole cover. Pretty

small potatoes compared with the current multimillion-dollar jobs. I

guess we’ve climbed a long way up civilization’s ladder.

As I say, in my day, antisocial behavior usually consisted of

getting drunk or getting in a fight. While not endorsing either

activity, I must admit that it was sort of fun to go out on the beach

in front of the Rendezvous nearly every Saturday night to watch a

couple of young bucks slug it out. Well, slug it out may be a touch

of hyperbole. On that dark beach, the antagonists seldom connected.

One did, and knocked all the front teeth out of the mouth of my law

school buddy, Greg Bautzer. Afterward, Greg had a highly publicized

affair with Joan Crawford and became a famous Hollywood lawyer. I

think the Balboa incident may have helped. Greg’s false teeth were a

big improvement on his old ones.

I don’t want to sound like I’m advocating drinking and fighting,

but I do submit that they are rather harmless activities compared

with stealing millions of dollars. As to the latter, I must admit

it’s a little embarrassing to confess that the only two thefts I can

remember from my youth were of a fish net and a manhole cover. I

guess that if you’re going to be a thief, you ought to go first

class, and the new breed seems to be doing just that.

* ROBERT GARDNER, a Corona del Mar resident, is a retired judge

and a longtime observer of life in Newport Beach.