Making a July 4 stakeout stick

Dave Brooks

For residents on Main Street, the Fourth of July weekend doesn’t

begin with a downtown parade or a fireworks show. On the route that

brings in 150,000 visitors a year, Fourth of July begins with a green

light from the police and harmonic pounding of wooden stakes into the

grass.

At 7 a.m. Sunday, nearly 24 hours before the city’s annual parade

got underway, residents were allowed to officially “stake out” a

place to watch what’s billed as the biggest Fourth of July parade

west of the Mississippi.

After a motorcycle police officer gave local residents the thumbs

up, hundreds of people began pounding wooden stakes into the grass

area separating the street from the sidewalks, threading the pilings

with ribbons, strings and tape. The small plot of normally public

grass was then declared temporarily private for the day, cordoned off

as the domain of nearby homeowners and their friends and family

invited to town to view the parade.

Residents said the staking out is necessary to get a good spot and

by 7:15 a.m. Sunday, every imaginable plot of grass from 6th Street

to Yorktown Avenue was claimed for the next day’s parade. Those who

don’t live on Main Street simply draw big boxes with chalk on street

corners and write their names in the square.

While the staking out may seem awkward, even unfair to

non-residents, it has become a tradition on Main Street and a chance

for neighbors to get out and see each other.

“For a lot of us, especially those who went to Huntington (Beach)

High, it’s a kind of a reunion,” said Downtown resident Pam Alagata,

who planned to erect a tent on the sidewalk space she reserved for

her grandchildren. “There’s definitely a togetherness about all this.

It’s become ingrained in the Fourth of July weekend.”

Up to the turn of the 21st century, there were no official rules

about staking out.

“One year a guy came out in a pickup truck and unloaded these old

redwood lawn chairs in front of my house, nine days before the Fourth

of July,” downtown resident Ray Walker said.

Increasing incivility prompted Walker and other local residents to

petition the City Council for an ordinance governing the stakeouts.

The council followed with a bill arguing that residents couldn’t

stakeout a spot to view the parade until the stroke of midnight on

July 2. Main Street residents responded by throwing parties until

midnight, then quickly dashing into their front yards to save a spot.

Chief Ken Small said police were concerned about the dangers and

troubles caused by the new late-night stakeouts.

“We had a situation where people, often intoxicated, were running

out into the street to get a spot,” he said. “We were afraid

something bad would happen.”

In February the council decided to change the stakeout, moving it

to its 7 a.m. time slot just a day before the parade. The council

also banned the use of duct tape to mark off spots, arguing that the

tape often stayed on the streets for weeks and months after the

parade.

Many local residents said they were happy with the change, arguing

that the once wild party atmosphere had been transformed into a more

sober tradition.

“It’s not martini time anymore,” Downtown resident Dewey Anderson

said. “People are going to start having the breakfast party instead

of the cocktail party.”