Fire, Violence Mark Final Day of 1994 : Law enforcement: Two deaths, a stabbing, a shooting and mayhem among unruly revelers are reported. Drunk driving arrests are down.

Fire, death and rowdy celebrators rang in the Orange County New Year.

Firefighters worried about bullets as they extinguished a blaze in Stanton, while in Huntington Beach, a large, unruly crowd pelted firefighters with bottles. In Seal Beach and Anaheim, men were stabbed and shot during altercations. A pedestrian struck by a car in Newport Beach just two hours after the new year began died Sunday afternoon. And in Tustin, an assault victim who had been in a coma for more than a month became 1994’s final homicide, dying on New Year’s Eve.

Elsewhere, freeways and highways were relatively safe during New Year’s Eve as the California Highway Patrol reported no fatal accidents and a modest 40 drunk driving arrests in Orange County. Most local police similarly reported few drunk driving arrests and even fewer accidents.

“For the first time in my memory, we went through a New Year’s Eve without a drunk driving arrest,” Newport Beach Police Lt. Jim Carson said. “I heard that every hotel room in Newport Beach was booked up last night. I think people are going out to party and then just making arrangements to stay.”

Orange Police Sgt. John Whiteley said officers in that city reported “never seeing so many cabs around bars as they did last night,” as merrymakers apparently took steps to leave the driving to someone sober.

Nevertheless, New Year’s Eve brought danger and destruction.

A fire gutted a Stanton liquor store on New Year’s Day shortly after midnight. As Orange County firefighters fought to control the blaze, they also feared for their safety, hearing the sounds of guns being fired into the air by people celebrating 1995’s arrival. No one was injured.

Tubby’s Liquor, a one-story building at 10630 Magnolia Ave., was destroyed by the blaze, which caused an estimated $255,000 damage to contents and the structure, said Dennis Shell, fire information officer. The cause of the fire had not been determined Sunday.

When firefighters arrived at the scene at 12:38 a.m. Sunday, they found flames fully engulfing the front of the store. As they fought to contain the two-alarm fire and prevent its spread to an adjacent strip mall, gunshots in the surrounding neighborhood could be heard, but no one was struck by the falling bullets, Shell said.

Store owner Nader Fararj had closed the store before midnight, Shell said. It took 35 firefighters about 40 minutes to control the fire.

In Seal Beach, police responded about 11:10 p.m. to a disturbance call in the 4300 block of Elder Avenue, where a large New Year’s Eve party was taking place. As officers tried to disperse about 400 party-goers inside and outside a residence, a fight erupted outside among five or six people, Investigator Gary Krogman said.

A 20-year-old man was stabbed in the back three times and taken to Long Beach Memorial Hospital, where he is expected to recover from the wounds, Krogman said. The victim’s name was not available.

Three 17-year-old males were arrested without a struggle and held on suspicion of attempted homicide. Their names were not released. Police recovered a knife believed to be the weapon used in the assault.

Early Sunday morning, Anaheim police responded to a shooting at an abandoned residence in the 900 block of North Maple Street, Sgt. Thomas E. Lahmon said.

Scott Polson, 32, was shot in the mouth about 3:55 a.m. after an argument with two people at the residence. Polson fled to a nearby residence to seek help, then was taken to UCI Medical Center in Orange, where he was reported in stable condition.

The two shooting suspects fled and the investigation is continuing, Lahmon said.

Earlier in Huntington Beach, firefighters responding to a trash can fire were pelted with bottles thrown by New Year’s Eve celebrators who had poured out of bars onto Main Street at the stroke of midnight, police said.

Police were called to disperse the more than 200 revelers who filled the street in the 100 and 200 blocks of Main Street.

By the time officers arrived, most of the crowd had left. However, two men were arrested for refusing to leave the scene, a third for being drunk in public and another for resisting a police officer, Huntington Beach Police Sgt. Bob Peterson said.

“The incident was over very quickly and there were no injuries or major problems,” Peterson said.

A 21-year-old female pedestrian was struck by a van in Newport Beach about 2 a.m., police said. The woman, Dee Louise Hochstetler of San Diego, a student at Whittier College who appeared to be intoxicated, was struck at the intersection of 27th Street and West Balboa Avenue and was taken to Western Medical Center-Santa Ana, police said. She was pronounced dead at the hospital at 4:10 p.m., a coroner’s spokesman said.

The driver of the car was not cited or arrested, Newport Beach Police Lt. Jim Carson said. Tustin police added another murder to the county’s 1994 homicide statistics, which nevertheless remained substantially lower than the previous year’s. After more than a month in a coma, Scott Joseph Mundt, 29, died on New Year’s Eve without regaining consciousness, Tustin Police Lt. Christine George said.

Mundt had been in a coma since Nov. 29, when his mother returned to their apartment and found him unconscious. George said Mundt appeared to have been beaten on the head.

“It’s a mystery,” George said. “Nobody’s come forth (to provide) a lead at this point.”

An autopsy is pending to determine the cause of death.

* SAVED FROM FIRE

Man revived after firefighters find him with no pulse. B5