NEWPORT BEACH : Amended Ordinance on Loud Parties OKd

The City Council has approved an ordinance amendment that will allow the city to charge property owners up to $500 if police respond twice within 30 days to complaints of loud parties at private residences.

The council adopted the amendment last week in the hope that the penalties may encourage absentee landlords to exercise tighter control over tenants, many of whom rent from week to week. In addition to the fines, property owners could face more penalties or arrest if police are called more than twice in 30 days.

“The city is taking a very aggressive stand to the party houses who elect not to show common courtesy,” Councilman John Hedges said before joining in a unanimous vote.

Police investigator John Ludvigson said that most of the calls related to large or loud parties come from the Balboa Peninsula area. More than two-thirds of such calls answered by the department on a recent weekend were at properties between McFadden Square and the ocean.

Ludvigson said the problem is that owners are not taking responsibility for tenants’ actions.

Before the amendment, two police responses in one night would bring fines for violators. However, officers found that the fines were not effectively discouraging loud parties.

“Let’s say ‘rental A’ has a disturbance; we respond. At that point they quiet down. Then the next night, they have a party. They could be doing this every night of the week, but they are different parties,” Ludvigson said. “We basically have to provide security assignment.”

The fines will cover the cost of manpower, which city officials say is now drained by repeated calls to the same locations.