The Hermosa Beach Police Department, prepared for an influx of visitors for the Fourth of July holiday, rallied on 2nd Street around 10 a.m. on Thursday with mounted horseback officers, four-wheel drive vehicles, an L.A. County Sheriff’s Department command post station and even a police bus to hold the overflow of arrestees on the notoriously rowdy summer holiday.
While the police prepared for trouble downtown, the 39th Annual Hermosa Beach Ironman competition went off without a hitch. The early morning Fourth of July local tradition consists of about 550 competitors running a mile, paddling a surfboard a mile and finally chugging six cans of beer – hopefully without throwing up, in order to win.
Jeff Bellandi, 46, a two-time winner won the men’s division with a time of 19 minutes, 32 seconds. Annie Seawright-Newton, 47, an 18-year competitor and 10 or 11-time winner defended last year’s title and won once again with a time of around 22 minutes.
“It was way tamer this year,” Seawright-Newton. “It’s cool that it’s still going on, hopefully we’ll be able to celebrate 40 years next year without any problems.”
The event is held every Fourth of July at 9 a.m. near 29th Street in Hermosa Beach and includes dozens of men and women competing. The Ironmen was left alone by the Hermosa Beach Police Department, who pledged to the City Council to step-up July 4 police presence and increased enforcement of alcohol-related infractions. By 10 a.m. the event was winding down and most competitors were clearing out and cleaning up the thousands of beer cans left over from the event. A police SUV kept watch over the event, but no arrests were made.
“There’s so much we’re trying to do,” Hermosa Beach Police Chief Michael McCrary said in an interview before the holiday. “It [the Ironman] is not something that I have the resources to put into this year. It’s the long-term issues I’m looking at and trying to address; I’d hate to pull a lot of resources away from what else we’re trying to do.”
Seawright-Newton, the winner of the women’s division, said her key to winning is to drink light beer and pop the beer cans before starting the run so they’re less fizzy when you have to chug them.
“Then the trick is to burp a lot,” she said.
Seawright-Newton has only vomited twice in the last fifteen years of competition.
While the Ironman was winding down, the HBPD in conjunction with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department Deputies were preparing for a hectic day.
In mid-February the Hermosa Beach City Council, sick of the rowdy crowds and over-the-top celebrations, authorized the HBPD to hire 50 additional L.A. County Sheriff’s Deputies, including horse-mounted officers, 4-wheel drive vehicles and undercover officers. Over 100 officers were in the community on July 4th, McCrary said. The council also approved the department’s request to add two paramedic ambulances along with additional fire engines, an emergency medical technician, and an additional command vehicle. DUI task force officers and representatives from the Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC) were also on hand throughout the day.
From 6 a.m. July 4 to 6 a.m. July 5, the HBPD wrote 114 citations and responded to 367 calls for service, up from 244 last year. The vast majority of the citations were for open containers.
“Not that many, but a few were minors,” HBPD Lt. Tom Thompson said. “The vast majority of the citations were for adults.”
At the end of June, McCrary, via the HBPD’s emergency alert system, cautioned both residents and visitors to behave this Fourth of July.
“I am calling to let you know that the Hermosa Beach police will be working hard to protect the public’s safety in our city on the Fourth of July,” the automated message said. “As you may know, unruly crowds and intoxicated individuals have endangered themselves and the public on this holiday in previous years….This Fourth of July will be different in Hermosa Beach.”
He went on to say the department would be tripling the number of law enforcement personnel in Hermosa Beach starting at 10 a.m. on July 4. The fines for drinking in public were tripled beginning July 1.
Last year, the HBPD ran out of jail space because of the large number of arrests made throughout the day. This year they stepped up their game plan as over 100 officers saturated the 1.4 square-mile town throughout the day.
This year officers made 29 alcohol related arrests, including 22 drunk in public, four arrests for disturbing the peace, and two arrests for resisting an officer
“Just about everything that impacted us on the fourth had something to do with alcohol,” McCrary said after the holiday. “And the overwhelming majority of citations issued were to people from outside the area.”
“There was also one felony arrest for narcotics and one felony arrest for a robbery,” Thompson said. “The robbery was an ex-boyfriend-girlfriend thing. He punched the ex-girlfriend and stole her phone, and forgot you can do a ‘Find my iPhone’ thing. Officers had him in custody very quickly.”
Thompson said that only a handful of minors were arrested.
“One [minor] ran and was eventually corralled by the horses on the beach,” Thompson said. “He ran west to the beach towards the water line- where are you going to go from there? His father had to come down and get the citation along with his son. Parents need to be mindful of what their kids are doing. Do you really know what they’re doing on July 4, because you’re going to be citied too.”
Two prisoners were transported to the Manhattan Beach Police Department due to overcrowding on the police bus and in the HBPD jail.
“Anytime you step up enforcement you’re going to have more calls for service,” said Thompson. “We’re going to continue doing it to this level for several years until it gets to the level where the council and city are happy. There are still a lot of people coming down, drinking and trying to take over the place, partying too much.”
Thompson added that at one point when it was very hectic the police had people lined up near a police checkpoint ready to be transported to the police bus and station. Police had to break up one incident on the beach with a very large unruly crowd.
“We basically lined our people up and shooed them off the beach,” said Thompson. “The rest of the day it stayed really nice.”
In the evening, the police and fire department struggled to respond to calls about illegal fireworks. Thompson said they plan on addressing that issue more next year.
“We’re very satisfied with how it came out… We got a lot of great feedback from the citizens who applauded our enforcement, and it showed with the amount of people at the beach not walking around with open containers,” said Thompson. “You could even walk a distance and not see people drinking, for once.”
