Huntington Puts Teeth in Ban on Public Drinking

HUNTINGTON BEACH — In an effort to curb drunken troublemakers during the city’s annual July 4 celebration, the City Council has strengthened an ordinance that bans most outdoors public drinking in the community, even by residents on their own front lawns.

Police Chief Ronald E. Lowenberg proposed toughening the city’s ordinance after Municipal Judge Caryl Lee ruled in November the original law was unconstitutionally vague. She threw out the cases of four people arrested for drinking last July 4 because the law didn’t clearly define “public place.”

The amended ordinance, which would be in effect year-round, still makes it illegal to drink in most public places. However, changes preliminarily approved by a 4-3 council vote early Tuesday--final action will be taken May 19--clarify what is a public place.

It’ll be against the law to drink on your front lawn unless you have a fence. And it’s OK to drink on a raised porch, but not a level patio in an unfenced yard. The ordinance does allow drinking on balconies, but not in an open garage.

Councilman Tom Harman said the ordinance makes it illegal to be “just mowing the yard on any given day of the year and drinking a beer.”

“It’s just full of mischief,” he said. “We’re going to have some real interesting calls to the Police Department” from people with grudges against neighbors who will use the ordinance to make citizen’s arrests.

Police Lt. Jon Arnold said the department needs the law to keep holiday gatherings from getting out of hand.

Last year, police started a zero-tolerance policy against public drinking during the city’s July 4 celebration. In previous years officers contended with rowdy street parties, large groups of drunken youths hurling rocks and bottles at officers, and others setting furniture ablaze in the street.

“If it were citywide, or L.A.-wide or statewide, you could declare martial law,” Mayor Ralph H. Bauer said at the Monday council meeting. “It’s that bad.

“You can’t expect the Police Department to get the job done if you don’t give them the tools,” he said.

But some residents criticized the department for being overzealous last year, after officers plucked people off their front yards and arrested them.

Most of those arrested under the zero-tolerance policy last year pleaded guilty or no contest, Arnold said. But several said later they did so to reduce the charges to infractions, which don’t become part of their permanent records, and because it would have cost too much to fight.

Councilman Dave Garofalo suggested reviewing the amended ordinance in August to see if a law that stringent is necessary.

“I don’t want to live in a police state,” he said. “I don’t want to live in a city where this is the law forever.”

City Attorney Gail Hutton proposed an alternative ordinance that would have outlawed public drinking for everyone, but only on July 4, and only downtown.

But the council passed Lowenberg’s version 4 to 3, with Garofalo, Harman and Councilman Dave Sullivan opposing.