AIDS in Paradise : With One of Highest Rates in Nation, Laguna Copes With Fear, Naivete, Hate

At the Laguna Beach Chamber of Commerce, office manager Karen Huntling fields calls from prospective visitors who want to know: “If my child lies in the sand, will he get AIDS? If my child were to drink out of the drinking fountain, will he get AIDS?”

In his book-lined study at the Laguna Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Jerry Tankersley warns of promiscuity and proffers a small brochure, “Teens and AIDS,” that he soon will distribute to parishioners.

And at a downtown office building, accountant Laura Wantz says she knows three people who died of AIDS and 10 more who have it now. In this town of about 19,000 people, nearly everyone knows someone who has AIDS, Wantz said.

For the last seven years, AIDS has cut a wide swathe through the populace of the pretty little coastal enclave of Laguna Beach.

This longtime artists’ colony, whose turquoise coves, sheltered beaches and summer arts festival attract perhaps 3 million tourists every summer, has the highest rate of AIDS in Orange County and one of the highest rates in the nation.

The toll of victims goes beyond the dead and dying to include Laguna Beach’s gay and heterosexual residents who don’t have AIDS but who have suffered, too, as friends and neighbors have died. It also has provoked fear in both residents and tourists that they may catch the usually fatal disease, and has given rise to increasing hostility toward Laguna’s gays.

With 66 AIDS cases since 1980, Laguna Beach has a per capita incidence of the disease comparable to that of San Francisco or Manhattan, said Dr. Kenneth Castro, a medical epidemiologist for the National Center for Disease Control’s AIDS Program in Atlanta.

In one count, made last October, San Francisco’s rate was 316 per 100,000 population, Manhattan’s was 270 per 100,000. And by extrapolation, Laguna Beach’s would be about 354 cases if it had a population of 100,000, Castro said.

The city of Laguna Beach may be one of the hardest hit in the country in terms of “personal awareness of AIDS deaths,” said Dr. Michael Gottlieb, a nationally recognized AIDS researcher from Santa Monica who has treated many of Laguna’s AIDS patients. “That kind of incidence can change the character and life of a community,” he said.

Concerned about the rising toll from AIDS, the Laguna Beach City Council in February created a task force to educate the entire town about the disease. Committee members are still getting organized, said task force chairwoman Karen Jones, who refers to the disease as “a plague.”

But, Jones said, they hope to target businessmen, church groups, students, psychologists--even astrologists--to debunk myths about AIDS and warn of how it is contracted. (Caused by a virus, the disease is spread through intimate sexual contact or an exchange of blood or bodily fluids, but not through casual contact.)

Part of the committee’s mission is to protect the image of this tourist town, said Tankersley, another task force member.

“I’ve heard rumors about people concerned to come here, afraid to eat at restaurants or go to the beach or drink the water and get AIDS. The message needs to be very clear: This is a safe, beautiful place. We should not be looked at as a sick community.”

Robert F. Gentry, the city councilman who conceived of the task force, said he is hoping the committee can help to stop the spread of the disease. The stakes are high, Gentry and other city leaders say, for already AIDS has disrupted community life in several ways.

Sense of Personal Loss

First, it has created a pervading sense of personal loss, Gentry and others said, because since 1981 half a dozen business and community leaders have died of the disease. City arts commissioner Henry Hampton, Coast Inn general manager Crawford Hartley and several business leaders--including a florist credited with beautifying a section of downtown--all have died of AIDS.

AIDS deaths are so frequent that “almost every church in our town has had funerals of people who died of AIDS,” Tankersley said. All over town, there is “a great sadness” from the deaths, accountant Wantz said.

The disease has had a particularly sobering affect on Laguna’s gay community, which Gentry estimated makes up between 15% to 30% of the city’s population. (Though AIDS can affect heterosexuals, so far all the Laguna victims have been homosexual men). In the last few years, gays have restrained, even changed, their sexual activities as the AIDS toll rose, some of Laguna’s gay residents said.

“We have become more monogamous,” said Lou, a 46-year-old computer operations manager who was drinking alone one recent weeknight at a gay bar called ‘The Little Shrimp.’ Asked if he was monogamous, Lou answered quickly, “No. But I’ve become more careful.”

For now, AIDS does not appear to have hurt business in Laguna Beach. Real estate prices remain high, from $200,000 for a bungalow to more than $2 million for an oceanfront home. Although out-of-towners telephone the local chamber of commerce from time to time to ask if the community is “safe,” on weekdays and weekends alike tourists still flood the shops and restaurants downtown.

But some businessmen fear that the tourist trade could slow if continuing AIDS deaths leave a stigma on the town. “There is a real problem for the city if there are people who think they can contract AIDS by coming here,” one business leader said.

Rising Homophobia

Another concern, Gentry and several other task force members said, is rising homophobia, apparently the result of the AIDS epidemic.

At The Little Shrimp, high school youths regularly drive by the bar and yell at patrons: “You’re going to get AIDS and die!” waiter Rusty Tepper said.

Councilman Gentry, who is gay, also has experienced the abuse. “A couple of high school kids used to come by the house with megaphones and scream ‘AIDS!’ ” he said.

To Gentry, the rise in verbal attacks on gays is especially disturbing because Laguna has had a long tradition of tolerance for different life styles. For at least 40 years, “Laguna Beach has been known as a place where gay and non-gay live neighbor-to-neighbor, where they know and respect each other,” he said.

But with the spread of AIDS, that may be changing, Gentry said.

When Orange County began experiencing AIDS deaths in 1980, Laguna was one of the first cities to have AIDS cases. It was also the first community to try to come to terms with the disease, city and county officials said.

“They were interested and concerned early,” said Dr. Thomas Prendergast, epidemiologist for the Orange County Health Care Agency, who gave his first talk on AIDS in 1982 to a gathering of several hundred people at St. Mary’s Church in Laguna Beach. So early was it that Prendergast said he had to read up on AIDS in order to give the talk.

Continuing Education

Since then, community reaction to AIDS has shifted from panic and ignorance about the disease to an educated awareness, said Nancy Dudley, director of patient services at the Laguna Beach Community Clinic.

“I’ve seen an excellent progression from questions like, ‘I had a painter in my house and I know he’s gay, and he touched the doorknobs. What do I do?’ to ‘I’ve heard that AIDS transmission can be stopped. What is safe sex?’ ” Dudley said.

In a continuing effort to combat AIDS, Dudley’s clinic recently began distributing free “Care Packages,” white envelopes containing brochures on AIDS and three condoms.

Like many of her fellow AIDS task force members, Dudley believes Laguna Beach exhibits “a collective concern (about AIDS) that you don’t find in other cities. This city lives with AIDS. We’re not just talking about it; we’re trying to do something about it,” she said.

Despite that community concern, most services for AIDS patients are located outside the city limits.

South Coast Medical Center in South Laguna handles some AIDS patients, but those who fall seriously ill usually travel to Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach, UCI Medical Center in Orange or to Dr. Gottlieb in Santa Monica for treatment, Gentry and others said. For counseling and other support services, AIDS patients must drive to the AIDS Services Foundation in Costa Mesa or the AIDS Response Program in Garden Grove.

Still, many of the founders of these services were from Laguna Beach. “Rather than creating programs just for their small city, they’ve responded to the entire county,” said Steve Peskind, a founder of the AIDS Services Foundation.

Volunteer Program

Peskind now is trying to start a “volunteer hospice program” in Laguna to aid AIDS patients at home. Additionally, Laguna therapist Richard Amman is setting up discussion groups for AIDS patients there.

For a 23-year-old AIDS patient named Jim, services like these can’t come soon enough. Sipping iced tea laced with honey, Jim sat barefoot on a living room couch and talked about living with this fatal disease.

Mostly, he has found the services and treatment he needs at Hoag or at the AIDS Services Foundation, Jim said. “Outside of Richard (Amman) and the (Laguna Beach) Community Clinic, I don’t know of a lot going on in Laguna,” he said.

Briefly, he discussed the city task force on AIDS. But he was not impressed. Jim said he didn’t mean to carp, “but that’s pretty late. This (AIDS epidemic) has been going on awhile.”

Jim is the third of four roommates to have contracted AIDS. The youngest, 20-year-old Brian, died of the disease in February at their split-level apartment in north Laguna.

Though many community leaders talk of Laguna’s concern for AIDS patients, Jim said he and his roommates got no help from their neighbors when they tended Brian at home.

Mostly they have coped with AIDS by themselves, said Jim and a roommate, Mark, who has not contracted the disease. When Brian died and “his body was wheeled out, the neighbors didn’t even know,” Mark said.

Doesn’t Mind Isolation

But for the most part, Jim said he didn’t mind the isolation he and his roommates have felt in Laguna. “This is a wonderful environment, beautywise. If you have to have AIDS, you might as well do it in Laguna Beach,” he said.

But city leaders don’t want any more of their residents to have AIDS. Thus the task force and the city’s new focus on the disease.

“There’s concern in paradise,” said Harry Moon, a well-known Laguna Beach restaurateur who serves on the AIDS task force; after too many deaths, the city is committed to stopping them, he said.

For all that, some residents don’t believe the toll of AIDS deaths in Laguna Beach will end soon. Laguna Beach High School counselor Jan Fritsen has been warning students about the disease, but fears that some won’t get the message.