Laguna Beach : Hare Krishnas Can’t Use Park, Beach for Festival

The Hare Krishna organization has been refused permission to hold a two-day August festival in either Heisler Park or at Main Beach.

Instead, the City Council suggested that the group use the Irvine Bowl for its “Festival of India,” which is to include booths and displays.

Representatives from the International Society for Krishna Consciousness asked the council for permission to use the park or Main Beach on Aug. 17 and 18.

The council denied the request because “there is a tremendous difficulty with the amount of people that are there already,” Mayor Dan Kenney said. “Everybody is concerned about First Amendment rights and the right of people to gather, but we weighed that against legitimate concerns of all the people that use the area.”

The council’s primary concern was the erection of booths and displays that would add to the congestion, he said. During good weather, and especially in the summer, Heisler Park and Main Beach become jammed with thousands of visitors, and parking space is at a minimum.

The Krishna organization, which declined to comment, has given the city no crowd estimates for the fair.

Kenney stressed Laguna Beach’s reputation for tolerance of alternative life styles and said, “If it had been St. Catherine’s Church or the Rotary Club, they would have gotten the same response” from the council.

“The best thing about Laguna is there is very much a live-and-let-live attitude, and the last thing I want construed is that this is some kind of statement against the Krishnas, because it is not,” Kenney said.