‘86 riot spurred change

Lt. Craig Juninger had been on the Huntington Beach police force for just a year, but he had some training on handling crowds. Still, nothing prepared him for the U.S. Open of Surfing 20 years ago.

“We train for crowd control but it’s an intimidating sight when you have a thousand people throwing things at you, turning over police cars and burning,” Juninger, now the department’s spokesman, said.

Twenty years ago, when the U.S. Open was known as the Op Pro Surfing Championships, a mob of about 100 people damaged city property and set fire to about three police cars and two lifeguard vehicles. Ten to 15 people were hurt in the melee.

The rioters pelted police officers with bottles and rocks and downtown businesses shut down for the day, Juninger said.

Mayor Dave Sullivan and other city leaders preferred to remember the reforms stemming from the riot. “It has made us cautious with a huge crowd that things can happen and we have learned from that,” Sullivan said.

“It’s really such a dead issue, and we’re still talking about it,” said Doug Traub, president and chief executive of the Huntington Beach Visitors and Conference Bureau. “We can’t seem to get over it, especially the media.”

The riots erupted during an infamous bikini contest close to Labor Day weekend. It was the finale of the surfing event, which drew 100,000 people that year.

Two girls complained to a police officer on the beach about a group of guys who had been taunting them to pull their tops off, Juninger said.

A fight ensued after someone shoved a police officer, and then things quickly deteriorated into a mob scene, he said.

Nationwide television coverage of the riots marked a low point in the city’s history, Juninger said.

The city discontinued the bikini contest, which had taken center stage over the surfing tourney.

Councilman Gil Coerper, who was a police officer at the time called in to help quell the riot, said police officers were outnumbered that day. About 150 officers, including those from neighboring agencies, were called in to stop the rioters, Juninger said.

Through the ‘80s and ‘90s, Fourth of July riots were also a common occurrence.

But the community has changed a great deal since 1986, Police Chief Ken Small said. Most people still talk about the riots as if they happened yesterday, he said.

“It’s ancient history now, time for people to move on and talk about something else.

“There’s been a lot of redevelopment, a lot of new homes, the housing prices have gone up significantly, and there are not nearly as many short-term rentals as before,” Small said.

Over the years, city leaders, event sponsors and police got together to improve the city and tournament’s image.

The surf contest has “certainly reinvented itself,” said Naida Osline, special events coordinator for the city.

The Op Pro began in 1982 and since then has seen several name changes with various sponsors and events such as skateboarding being added.

“As a silver lining to the incident, the pendulum has swung to the opposite end of the spectrum,” Traub said.

The city has “obviously recovered” from its past, Juninger said. “We have many high-profile events at the beach,” he said. “A lot of strategic and contingency planning and preparation goes into these events.”

And the police department has a lot more officers detailed to big events than in 1986. For instance, 20 years ago about eight officers were assigned to the Op Pro. At this year’s surfing championship, there were 20 some officers on duty.

About 200,000 people attend the U.S. Open, double the crowd size in 1986. Still, city officials are careful to not have more people on the beach than it can hold and they avoid hosting events on long holiday weekends.

The city has become a safe venue and hosts safe events, Traub said. Changes at the U.S. Open of Surfing, such as a ban on alcohol and a 10 p.m. curfew have helped, he said.

“We do a lot of things today that we didn’t then,” Traub said. “We have become a better city because of it , perhaps overly cautious, but in time we’ll become less so.”

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