Locals deadlocked over Jackson hype

Andrew Edwards

Baja Sharkeez on the Balboa Peninsula is a sports bar -- not usually

the kind of place people go to watch the news while they down a beer

and hamburger. But things were a little different Monday.

About 40 to 50 bar patrons watched and listened in surround sound

as a Santa Maria jury acquitted pop singer Michael Jackson of child

molestation and other charges Monday, Sharkeez manager Sean Swentek

said.

“People were into it. I think people were surprised,” Swentek

said.

Just about anyone with access to a television, radio or the

Internet could have learned the result of the trial as it happened

Monday. But despite the media circus that surrounded court

proceedings, not everyone around Newport-Mesa was captivated by

up-to-the-minute news coverage.

Customers at another sports bar on the peninsula, Rudy’s Pub &

Grill, were more interested in college baseball than the Jackson

verdict, manager Ryan Turrentine said. Turrentine also said he

expected the verdict.

“Everyone knew he was going to get off,” Turrentine said. “Rich

people always get off.”

At 3-Thirty-3 Waterfront, a Newport Beach bar, owner Jeff Reuter

expected his customers would want the bar’s televisions tuned to the

verdict. They did not.

“I think everybody’s over Michael Jackson,” Reuter said.

“I thought it would be exactly like O.J. [Simpson] and it was the

complete opposite,” he added.

When former football star O.J. Simpson was acquitted of murder

charges in 1995, Reuter watched the verdict while at a party. He said

he and other partygoers were shocked by that trial’s outcome, and

expected patrons at his bar would want to watch and debate the end of

the Jackson trial.

Not everyone was able to watch -- or ignore -- the verdict while

enjoying a cocktail. Many people were at work when the trial ended,

and a sampling of Newport-Mesans said they and their co-workers did

not drop everything to find out what happened to the man who sang

“Thriller.”

“Are we too dedicated to even leave our desks for a moment?” asked

Werner Escher, executive director of domestic and international

markets for South Coast Plaza. Escher said it was business as usual

for him and his co-workers when the verdict came out.

Two others who did not share cable news anchors’ interest in the

case were Allan Roeder and Homer Bludau, respectively the city

managers for Costa Mesa and Newport Beach. Roeder said he does not

get paid to take a break to follow a celebrity trial. Bludau said he

did not need to pay attention to the verdict Monday afternoon since

it would not change from the live broadcast to the nightly news.

At the Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce, chamber president Ed

Fawcett said he worked while watching the verdict on television in

his office, but did not stop business to watch the news.

“The world revolves and we don’t stop,” Fawcett said.

* ANDREW EDWARDS covers business and the environment. He can be

reached at (714) 966-4624 or by e-mail at andrew.edwards

@latimes.com.