11 Suspects Arrested During Irish Day

* This story was written by Jeff Lipton.

Long Beach police rounded up 11 suspects during Saturday’s Irish Day festivities in incidents ranging from disorderly conduct to assault, authorities said.  

“The arrests were for a wide range of activities,” said Sgt. Eric Cregeen, a spokesman for the Long Beach Police Department. “It was par for the course.”  

Cregeen said the 11 arrests included five suspects nabbed for disorderly conduct, two on public lewdness charges and one felonious assault. The other charges included municipal code violations and an arrest on a warrant.  

In addition, more than 75 appearance tickets were issued for quality of life violations, including having an open alcoholic beverage in public and urinating in public.  

At least one person was injured in connection with the assault, Cregeen said.

City officials were hoping for a more family-friendly atmosphere at Saturday’s event and had warned Irish Day festival-goers to stay away if they could not behave themselves. For the most part the message was received, Cregeen believes.  

“It would have been great if we didn’t have any arrests, but some people find it hard to operate within the confines of the law,” he said. “It was a nice crowd this year. It was crowded down there all day and it was a good family atmosphere.”

He said the event was made even better because the bar owners complied with their wishes to close earlier.  

“They closed their doors at 1 a.m. and the lights went out at 2," Cregeen said. "It really made a big difference this year. Because of the compliance by the bars, we saved a considerable amount of money in overtime,”  

The bars closing earlier also allowed police officers to be dismissed sooner. “We were able to send some police officers home as early as 10 p.m., and then we were able to send others home every hour from there,” he added.  

The shopkeepers in Long Beach raised about $25,000 to pay for overtime for police, according to Bernie Petty, Irish Day Parade Chairman for the Ancient Order of Hibernians.  

The new 11 a.m. starting time, an hour earlier than the traditional noon start, for the parade also apparently helped to keep crowds more under control. As a result, West Beech Street was also opened an hour earlier at 5 p.m., which aided in more quickly dispersing the crowds.  “I think it went pretty smoothly considering the amount of people that were there,” said Cregeen.   

Two suspects were arrested for being “engaged in a lewd act,” said Cregeen, who would not elaborate. West End resident Richard Papetti had said before the event that based on the summer, which saw an increase in enforcement, he expected even more stepped up enforcement during Irish Day, with more tickets being handed out.  

West End residents had complained about the rowdy and lewd behavior during the past several Irish Day festivals. Earlier this year, they even suggested moving it to the East End or cancelling it altogether in 2012, given the disorderly conduct and the city’s current fiscal crisis.  

Petty said the Hibernians, which has sponsored the festival for the last 23 years, were notified by the city administration about five weeks before the event that issues had to be resolved, which led to the time changes. This gave them little time to note the changes in posters, letters and flyers advertising the event, he said.

City Manager Jack Schnirman said he was very pleased with how the festival turned out, and that  starting the parade an hour earlier and opening Beech Street an hour earlier “made a significant difference.”  

“The police commissioner and the police force did a fantastic job,” said Schnirman, who rode along with the police and observed the event from the beginning to the end.  

Schnirman said getting the word out about the city’s zero tolerance policy toward unruly revelers played a significant role in keeping the crowd in check.  

“I’ve been talking to residents and I’ve been told this was the smoothest and most orderly Irish Day anybody has seen,” said Schnirman, a West End resident.

Still, he said he will review the events of the day and attempt to improve upon it in the future.