Youth Rites at Resort Cool Amid Water Wars

By ERIC MALNIC

March 30, 1986 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

PALM SPRINGS — After using the streets of this desert resort as a giant crash pad, the thousands of college students swarming here in the ritual celebration of spring break cleaned up their act Saturday, as a wary, beefed-up police force altered its strategy.

The revelers who had run wild on Friday--committing assaults, ripping clothes off frightened women and attacking police and merchants with rocks and bottles--used water as their principal weapon on Saturday, dousing each other and gawkers with squirt guns, balloons and buckets as temperatures hovered above 80 degrees.

“We want sex!” gangs of students chanted during the night. Sometimes, they changed their tune to “We hate cops!”

But the police, after making about 120 arrests the day before, mostly just monitored the activity, which once again resembled more typical fun in the sun. Officers had made only about 18 arrests by 8:30 p.m., putting the total for the week above 450.

“So far, so good,” Palm Springs police Sgt. Dave Goodwin said at nightfall.

Police Force Grows

A daytime force of 50 officers monitoring the downtown “loop” formed by Palm Canyon Drive and Indian Avenue, the heart of the action, grew to 200 by dusk. Extra police were called in from nearby communities, Riverside County and the Highway Patrol for Saturday night, usually the wildest hours in these rites of spring. More reserves were standing by, Goodwin said.

Like the day before, the loop was wall-to-wall people, with many of the revelers driving in circles and others milling on the sidewalks and streets. Police estimated the number of visitors at between 10,000 and 15,000, with more arriving each hour.

Police tried a new tactic with the crowds of revelers. “We’re dividing our men up primarily in foot beat teams with the California Highway Patrol handling the traffic,” Goodwin said. “We’re looking forward to an active, busy night. We hope the high visibility of the officers will deter them.”

Traffic Lane Blocked

Officers hoped to avoid a incident like the one Friday afternoon when revelers blocked traffic and police massed in front of the crowd and ordered it to disperse. The tactic backfired, and the crowd rained police with rocks, bottles, cans, dirt and even chemical Mace. After retaliating with tear gas, officers made more than 30 arrests in that sweep.

Most of the 450 arrests have been for public drunkenness, failure to disperse, assault, battery, malicious vandalism and curfew violations. An assault with a deadly weapon was recorded Saturday, “but it may not be even related,” Goodwin said.

By contrast to Friday, the crowd had mellowed. At dawn Saturday, the loop resembled the awakening a huge slumber party. By 9 a.m., the sidewalks and streets were alive with college students--as well as many high schoolers--parading on foot and in cars, with others watching from motor homes and pickups or hotel roofs and windows lining the route.

The start of the impromptu parade was five hours earlier than Friday and nine hours earlier than in most previous years, when they began at sunset, police said.

Among the cruisers were convertibles brimming with bikini-clad young women and pick-up trucks with their beds lined with plastic and overflowing with water and people. Water missiles were usually aimed in the vicinity of the bikinis.

Observation Post

Rob Kubisiac, a 21-year-old student at Point Loma College in San Diego, watched the proceedings from the roof of a large motor home with four friends. “It belongs to the father of one of my friends,” he explained. Occasionally, they would splash water on those below. It was great fun, they agreed.

“To see people driving by 24 hours a day is great,” he said. “Good-looking girls go by all the time.” Parked in a van a few yards away and downing immense quantities of beer were three high schoolers from Orange County--Joe Bob Benson, 18, and Troy Waite, 17, of Huntington Beach and Dave Baca, 18, of Orange. A highlight, they agreed, was “a girl flashing her chest.”

In back of a pickup was Stacy Morrow, 18, of Hawthorne, an El Camino College student, taking aim at her boyfriend with a squirt gun.

“You’re never too old,” said the boyfriend, Mike Simmons, 26. But then Simmons showed his age, admitting that he would go home that night. “Too much sun.”

Contrary to police fears, the bacchanal seemed to cool after sundown. Temperatures dropped to the 70s, discouraging the water fights. Dim street lighting frustrated exhibitionists.

Incident in Street

Nerves rose a notch at 8 p.m. when the crowd surged into the street and four-lane Palm Canyon Drive for about five minutes. The mob allowed one car at a time to pass, as young men beseeched young women to remove their upper garments. One did.

This time, when police used a bullhorn and politely requested that the crowd return to the sidewalks, it worked.

Not everyone on the loop was intent on having fun. A small group paraded with six-foot-tall placards that read, “Fear the Lord or Die,” and “Turn to Jesus Christ or Burn in Hell Forever.”

And merchants on Palm Canyon Drive voiced general disgust.

“I don’t like it at all. Throwing water, things like that,” said Bob Kerchman, 62, owner of Rodann’s Jewelry. “The street was deserted except for youngsters.”

Not Everyone Happy

“We could do without it,” agreed Alan Zimmelman, 41, owner of PS Cookie Co. “It’s sad that kids have nothing better to do than insult and throw water at each other.”

Scott Smith, 31, owner of Woody’s Sportswear, figured he could take the good with the bad.

“I’m still young enough to remember doing things like that myself,” Smith said. “It’s hard on the nerves, but great on the pocketbook. We completely remerchandise for this weekend. Put all the stuff for college kids up front--trunks, T-shirts, like that--you know, it’s really fun.

“You can’t let it get to you. The girls all buy bikinis from the guy next door, and come in here to buy towels to match.”

But Smith’s seemed to be a minority opinion.

A woman clerk in one store, who declined to be identified, said: “They could take them all and drop them off a cliff far as I’m concerned.”