Newport Beach Ca

It's an evening tradition at Corona del Mar State Beach: At first, families descend on the 30 fire rings in the sand with bundles of wood, camping chairs and blankets, marshmallows and hot dogs. Then, as night falls, crowds of young people huddle around the glow of raging bonfires. When 10 p.m. hits, the police roll in to move them along. But that tradition could soon go up in smoke. Fed up with the late-night partying, smoke and mess left behind, Newport Beach officials may extinguish its dozens of fire pits once and for all. Councilwoman Nancy Gardner, who is spearheading the effort, said the nighttime scene at the fire pits at Big Corona, as the beach is known, has gotten out of control, with revelers burning huge nail-studded pallets and leaving hot coals in the sand.

It's an evening tradition at Corona del Mar State Beach: At first, families descend on the 30 fire rings in the sand with bundles of wood, camping chairs and blankets, marshmallows and hot dogs. Then, as night falls, crowds of young people huddle around the glow of raging bonfires. When 10 p.m. hits, the police roll in to move them along. But that tradition could soon go up in smoke. Fed up with the late-night partying, smoke and mess left behind, Newport Beach officials may extinguish its dozens of fire pits once and for all. Councilwoman Nancy Gardner, who is spearheading the effort, said the nighttime scene at the fire pits at Big Corona, as the beach is known, has gotten out of control, with revelers burning huge nail-studded pallets and leaving hot coals in the sand.

A jury on Tuesday found a former Newport Beach youth recreation leader guilty of 22 felony counts of lewd conduct, mostly for sucking the toes of more than a dozen young boys under his supervision. Jurors also found Trenton Michael Veches, 32, guilty of three misdemeanor counts of assaulting a child. Veches' lawyer, John Patrick Dolan, said he will appeal the verdict, which could carry a sentence of more than 300 years in prison but with the possibility of parole.

A small but dangerous brush fire that edged toward pricey Newport Beach homes Monday afternoon, damaging two homes and spurring a brief evacuation, was contained just two hours after it began, authorities said. The 35-acre fire, pushed by Santa Ana winds, chewed up hillsides in a neighborhood near Bonita Canyon Drive off the 73 toll road, threatening but not destroying any homes, said Jennifer Schulz, community education coordinator with the Newport Beach Fire Department.

A secret in the bluff-top communities of Newport Heights and Cliff Haven overlooking Newport Bay is not just the serene, rural atmosphere of the area but the odd collection of mailboxes proudly lining neighborhood sidewalks. One is a replica of a locomotive. Another is shaped like an anchor. Down on Catalina Drive, nearly every house has a peculiar box, such as the big blue-green and yellow swordfish outside one house that is likely to catch the eye of passersby.

Pity the Reuben E. Lee. The boat was intended as an ingenue: comely for its intended two-decade lifespan, relegated to the dumpster once it creaked and groaned with age. That hasn't eased the ache of Southern Californians who had long mooned over Newport Beach's kitschy smokestack riverboat, which cheated its certain annihilation for 20 extra years. Last week, workers began to dismantle its beige veneer -- the Reuben E. Lee had run out of tricks.

The city's Sister City Assn. has formed a relief fund for victims of the Jan. 17 earthquake in Kobe, Japan. Newport Beach is a sister city to the cities of Okazaki, Japan; Cabo San Lucas, Mexico; and Antibes, France. The volunteer Newport Beach Sister City Assn. is accepting donations of $10 or more at P.O. Box 10121, Newport Beach, CA 92659. For more information about the fund or other sister city activities, call (714) 720-1077 or (714) 644-3151.

Through the sickly sweet fog of designer fragrances, past gleaming cosmetics counters, the giant, furry critter pads across the polished tile. The prim sales clerks don't even bat an eye. They might even reach behind cases of creams and powders to pull out a treat. Welcome to Orange County's unofficial dog mall, otherwise known as Fashion Island -- an upscale collection of shops and restaurants in the even more upscale enclave of Newport Beach.

Long before Ken Barnes Jr. tried to sail around Cape Horn, the roaring winds and savage seas in the abyss off the tip of South America brought fear to even the most experienced seamen. Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, for example. "He was dreading doing that," said author Laurence Bergreen, whose "Over the Edge of the World" tells the story of history's first circumnavigation of the globe. "He thought it was certain death."

My husband, Paul, and I have never stayed at a bed-and-breakfast inn--fear of intrusive innkeepers and shared bathrooms--but the idea of boat and breakfast intrigued us. Which is why, on a recent Saturday morning, we headed south to Newport Beach, home of Worldwide Boat & Breakfast, a company that offers overnight stays on private yachts in Marina del Rey, Huntington Beach and Newport Beach for $150-$350.

The nation's economy might be crumbling, and the housing market may be in crisis, but Newport Beach is still dreaming big. The wealthy beach town's aging City Hall, a conglomeration of overstuffed buildings wedged next to a supermarket, is getting a makeover. Five designs for a new civic center offer flamboyant and wildly divergent visions for the symbolic heart of Orange County affluence. What could be more Newport Beach than an illuminated, sail-shaped roof and an upscale wine bar?

AT 22, Pierre Andre Senizergues moved from the suburbs of Paris to skateboarding's Valhalla: Venice Beach. "I was living in a Ford Econoline van for the first six months," he says, adding that his next home was a Manhattan Beach surf shack where he paid $50 a month to crash behind a sofa. That was long before Senizergues turned pro, became world champion, traveled the international circuit and founded Etnies, the footwear and apparel giant that logs $200 million in annual sales with its sister brands.

The body that was found packed in dry ice in a Newport Beach hotel room in March showed no evidence of physical trauma, according to a final autopsy report released Tuesday by the Orange County coroner's office. Monique Felicia Trepp, 33, died from a combined overdose of cocaine and alcohol, according to the report. Coroner's officials originally confirmed the cause of death in May.

Andy Rose is a fixture at the Thursday evening sailboat races in Newport Harbor -- freewheeling competitions dubbed the "beer cans" -- skippering his 49-foot, 11-inch silver beauty to first place nearly every week. As the sun sinks, Rose and about three dozen other competitors circle the waters south of Balboa Pavilion like sharks. The large boats, white sails fat with wind, slip past each other, angling toward the floating orange flag that marks the start.

A Canadian immigrant living in Newport Beach was charged in federal court Monday in one of the largest Ecstasy-smuggling busts in the region, authorities said. Alexandru Sabau, 37, was taken into custody Friday by agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after being intercepted near his apartment in the 9000 block of Residencia. Sabau was arrested as he arrived to meet with an informant to finalize a drug trade, authorities said.

The largest operator of sober-living homes in Newport Beach has agreed to preliminarily cut by a third the number of beds it provides at its drug and alcohol recovery facilities to settle a discrimination suit the company brought against the city. Sober Living by the Sea sued Newport Beach in February, alleging that the city discriminated against recovering drug and alcohol users by passing an ordinance that curbed operations at its facilities.

It was to have been a festive, end-of-school dinner dance aboard a yacht in Newport Harbor for students of a high school still too young to have a senior class. But the evening turned somber when classmates and parents learned that two popular students -- one who'd just been elected the school's first student body president -- were killed and four injured en route to the dance.

For more than 40 years, an unmistakable icon has greeted motorists along East Coast Highway in Newport Beach: a 35-foot-tall, Mississippi-style riverboat held together by I-beams, old-growth lumber and memories of weddings, high school proms and family outings. The Reuben E.

Orange County coroner's officials Thursday confirmed what investigators had long suspected: A woman whose body was found packed in dry ice in an upscale hotel room died of an overdose. Monique Felicia Trepp, 33, found March 6 at the Fairmont Hotel, died of an acute combination of cocaine and alcohol, supervising deputy coroner Larry Esslinger said. Investigators believe that she may have been dead for as long as a year. Trepp's boyfriend, Stephen David Royds, 46, has been charged with possession and intent to sell drugs from the hotel room that he and Trepp shared.

Through the sickly sweet fog of designer fragrances, past gleaming cosmetics counters, the giant, furry critter pads across the polished tile. The prim sales clerks don't even bat an eye. They might even reach behind cases of creams and powders to pull out a treat. Welcome to Orange County's unofficial dog mall, otherwise known as Fashion Island -- an upscale collection of shops and restaurants in the even more upscale enclave of Newport Beach.