Laguna Beach Ca

A state Coastal Commission decision to classify two Laguna Beach drainage ditches as waterways subject to environmental protection is being challenged in a lawsuit by a Catholic school that wants to build a bigger school on its campus. The suit, filed last week in Orange County Superior Court, argues that the commission overstepped its bounds when it decided that two ditches that channel water downhill during storms are streams.

On election eve when much of the country was transfixed by the nation's political races, a hastily assembled panel of school board candidates sat uneasily on stage at the Laguna Beach Women's Club. Facing them was an audience of parents looking for answers. Not answers about academic standards, curriculum or school funding, but answers on where candidates stood on something far more divisive: MTV.

A conservative advocacy group filed a lawsuit against Laguna Beach on Tuesday, alleging the city is violating federal law by helping undocumented workers find jobs. The lawsuit was filed in Orange County Superior Court on behalf of Laguna Beach residents Eileen Garcia and her husband, George Riviere. The lawsuit was filed by Judicial Watch, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that has filed similar suits elsewhere.

For years, cities the length of California have banned booze at the beach. Even the seashore in Laguna Beach -- a town with a rebel spirit -- long ago joined the prohibition and went dry. But now an unlikely group of residents is fighting, or gently arguing, for the right to party. Not unruly kids, not civil libertarians, but a polite collection of mostly retired men and women asking permission to hold their own happy hour every Friday in an isolated cove in Laguna Beach.

A 300-foot stretch of ocean in Laguna Beach has been closed to swimming and diving at least through Saturday because of a sewage spill, authorities said. About 400 gallons of raw sewage flowed into the ocean from Aliso Creek about 12:30 p.m. Wednesday after a pipeline company pumped too much water into a sewer line it was testing in Aliso Viejo, said Monica Mazur, a spokeswoman for the county's Environmental Health Division.

The Boom Boom Room, a gay bar that became an icon in Laguna Beach and beyond, won a reprieve this week after the new owner agreed to extend its lease rather than close it as planned next month. "It's like Christmas in August," said Fred Karger, who has campaigned to keep the bar open. "Now that it's staying open, I think the chances are greater that it will remain open permanently."

By midnight the drag queens were at it full throttle, strutting about in billowy blond wigs, faces caked with rouge and offering up ample "cleavage" for those generous or inebriated enough to slip in a few bucks. Women yelped joyfully as taut, leggy guys dressed like Celine Dion and Cher belted out anthems on stage. Elsewhere in the bar, dozens of men huddled close while others slung an arm around their partner. Women preened, and buff men exchanged smoldering stares.

About 250 demonstrators on both sides of the illegal immigration issue exchanged insults and slogans Saturday at the site of a day labor center recently order closed by the state and then reopened by the city. Members of the Minuteman Project, which opposes illegal immigration, said they were protesting the city's recent signing of a one-year lease with the California Department of Transportation, which owns the Laguna Canyon Road site where the labor center is located.

A Laguna Beach day labor hiring center, slated to close because it was operating illegally on state land, will remain open after an agreement between city and state officials. Two weeks ago, Caltrans ordered the long-established center to close, saying it was illegally operating on state property along Laguna Canyon Road, which the state hadn't known it owned.

It isn't easy being a statue in the city of the arts. Two sculptures in Laguna Beach have been turning heads -- and raising a few eyebrows. One is an "interactive" granite artwork unveiled Thursday in front of City Hall. The other is a refurbished concrete likeness of the "Greeter," an iconic Laguna character, at the former site of the Pottery Shack.