Relocating to her hometown was a goal accomplished for Long Beach native Kelly Dingwell.
She opened her boutique law firm 100 feet south of 2nd Street, the beating heart of lively and trendy restaurant district Belmont Shore. A year later, she moved into the area with her husband and two children, their home sitting directly behind late-night fixture Panama Joe’s, a Mexican restaurant and bar.
The homecoming brought Dingwell back to her old haunts from her days as a teenager attending Millikan High School in the early 2000s.
“It used to be a fun place that had a kind of college-crowd, beach-bum vibe to it that was a lot of fun,” Dingwell said. “But that’s all changed now. It’s just not as safe as it was then.”
Dingwell’s comments mirrored those made days earlier at a Long Beach City Council meeting. On Nov. 11, dozens of residents, business owners and community activists called on the city to crack down on what they deemed to be increases in crime, shootings, drunkenness, unregulated vending and loud noises emanating from Belmont Shore.
City Councilmember Kristina Duggan, who lives in and represents Belmont Shore, said she had been working with local entities, including law enforcement, to develop and implement reforms, some of which she pitched to the City Council that evening. She said four 2nd Street bars allowed to operate until 2 a.m. had agreed to shift their hours to midnight for 30 days while the city searched for solutions.
The incidents of violence
A pair of orange slim-line cones bookend a memorial along La Verne Avenue, just south of 2nd Street, where candles have been placed to form the initials “JAS.”
Jeremy Andrew Spears, 32, was shot and killed in Belmont Shore on Oct. 25. Police said Spears, the father of a 9-year-old boy, was involved in an altercation with multiple individuals at a bar, exited the establishment and was shot around 1:30 a.m.
Police have since arrested two suspects.
The killing was the third homicide on 2nd Street in less than 18 months.
There were also shootings in Belmont Shore on June 1 and 4 in which no one was injured. One occurred May 30 near the beach in the Alamitos Peninsula neighborhood, site of a number of high-end waterfront homes, that resulted in one person being hospitalized, according to the Long Beach Post.
This latest slaying, however, galvanized many residents in and around Belmont Shore who were feeling ignored.
“His death was preventable because a year ago we had already seen two violent deaths related to 2nd Street bars and safer times were promised,” Belmont Shore resident Brian Cochrane said at the Nov. 11 City Council meeting.
Jeffrey Cozart, principal partner at the Belmont Athletic Club, said that “it’s pretty obvious what’s changed,” referring to the lack of police patrols in Belmont Shore.
“I’m not saying this in a negative way, I know there a shortage of policemen,” he said at the meeting. “Just please do whatever you can to get us more help.”
Resident Steve Konig was a bit more blunt, saying he’d “heard from the police chief, I’ve heard from everybody for 30 years that it’s going to change. It hasn’t.”
Away from that meeting’s fervor, longtime Belmont Shore resident Dillon Hall, 37, enjoyed a Corona with his chocolate pit bull Zeppelin at Belmont Shore’s aptly named Dogz Bar & Grill on an overcast Thursday afternoon.
Hall grew up swimming in Belmont Shore during the day and returning to party in the evening.
He’s patronized local establishments much less recently at night, noting “a very different feel.”
“I’m happy the city is taking a look at what’s happening here because Belmont Shore is falling apart,” Hall said. “There’s homeless all around, drinking outdoors, and there’s never any police.”
He added, “It needs to be fixed.”
The changing Belmont Shore scene
Entertainment innovation is a hallmark of Legends Sports Bar on 2nd Street dating back to its opening in 1979.
Co-founder Dennis Harrah, a former Los Angeles Rams offensive lineman, installed satellite dishes to bring out-of-town games to transplants. The tavern has since referred to itself as “the first modern sports bar in America.”
Those behind Legends can admire the entrepreneurial spirit. But Matt Peterson says the commerce that’s popped up around Belmont Shore is changing the area and not for the better.
Peterson is the co-owner of Legends and president of the Belmont Shore Business Assn., which represents more than 150 independent businesses in the 14-block area.
Peterson said rogue buskers, or street performers, along with street vendors are bringing in a “late-night component that really has nothing to do with the businesses.”
“They’re taking it to another level,” Peterson said. “They use amps and speakers, and they’re attracting people traveling through the district.”
Peterson said visitors don’t have to patronize Belmont Shore bars and restaurants, including Legends, where a sign hanging at a public parklet — a COVID-19 pandemic-inspired outdoor seating area — assures that no purchase is necessary “to enjoy this public space.”
“They can stop by for food, music and can even buy booze at liquor stores and hang out for hours without any repercussions,” he said.
That music blows past yellow warning signs along side streets such as Granada and Nieto avenues that read “Quiet after 10 p.m.” and cite the city’s noise ordinance.
The incidents of violence, the loud music, the honking and the late-night drunkenness have added to residents’ turmoil.
Michael Anderson, who spoke at the City Council meeting, said his family had suffered “seven major incidents” in the two years he’d lived in Belmont Shore. Those included a speeding vehicle slamming through the front wall of his yard and a drunk driver knocking down a streetlight on the other side of his home, he said.
Duggan noted that she and a staffer walked along 2nd Street on a recent Friday between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. to document the scene.
They came across five bands and musicians setting up and playing amplified music at different intersections.
“These bands could be heard down streets, halfway up the blocks,” she said.
She also confirmed that several pop-up restaurants and vendors were serving a crowd buying and consuming alcohol not coming from Belmont Shore bars.
She noted that, on most weekends, “there’s one officer working the entire area.”
The police point of view
Belmont Shore residents are angry over what they see as growing violence, but Long Beach Police Chief Wally Hebeish said constituents’ experiences weren’t backed by stats.
Hebeish said slayings and shootings were down 30% and 35%, respectively, from last year.
There were 33 homicides last year and 23 this year as of October, according to Police Department crime statistics. There isn’t a statistical designation for shootings in the crime data.
Spears’ slaying marked the first homicide in Belmont Shore this year and the second in the police’s larger East Patrol Division, a 24-square-mile area that covers about 46% of the city along with Belmont Shore, according to Hebeish.
He said there were seven such homicides in the division last year.
“I say this with the understanding that there’s more to it than just the statistics, because the statistics in East Division show a significant reduction in crime,” Hebeish said.
He said his department had been on mandatory overtime for nearly two years due to staffing numbers. Even so, he said his officers arrived within two minutes of the Spears emergency call and had arrested a chief suspect and accomplice within 24 hours.
If there was a common link among the last three Belmont Shore shootings, Hebeish said, it’s that each happened in the late-night or early-morning hours.
The next steps
Legends is one of the four bars along 2nd Street temporarily moving their closing time from 2 a.m. to midnight, joining Shannon’s Bayshore Saloon, Dogz Bar & Grill and Panama Joe’s.
Peterson told The Times that “99.9%” of his patrons dine or drink at his establishment and then go home.
But some at the recent council meeting pointed squarely at the quartet of bars as the primary cause of the late-night disturbances.
Dingwell said late-night establishments could be proactive in resolving the issue — they could enforce a dress code, permanently move up last call, limit cheap shots of alcohol and turn on the lights when things get rowdy.
The Belmont Shore Business Assn. already has a dress code that includes no excessive baggy clothing, thick chains, or sunglasses at night, and backpacks are subject to searches.
Some bars have added restrictions, such as no face tattoos at Shannon’s.
Each establishment also has its own security.
Peterson told The Times that he suggested the temporary change in bar closing times to the city because the businesses “want to be good partners with our community. We want to find solutions.”
For now, the City Council has directed the city manager and city attorney to establish formal operating requirements for businesses that include community feedback and to create a late-night public safety plan for Belmont Shore within 45 days.
Part of that plan includes determining the feasibility of reestablishing police walking beats and reopening the Belmont Shore substation.
The City Council is also asking for enhanced DUI checkpoints, more targeted late-night enforcement against buskers and vendors and a crime hot spot report from the city manager within 45 days that examines crime in the area.
“When I was young, I use to think it was annoying having [police] patrols driving around and regular beat cops walking, telling me and others ‘to move it along,’” Dingwell said. “Now I understand how necessary it was and you don’t understand how important safety is until you’re not having fun anymore.”
The post The Belmont Shore problem: Violence, noise leave residents angry and Long Beach seeking answers appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
