(The following story by Vik Jolly and Lois Evezich appeared on The Orange County Register website on April 10, 2009.)
LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif. — A decades-long practice with murky origins of people dropping their drawers to moon passing Amtrak trains that last summer drew about 10,000 people to Laguna Niguel has become an expensive problem for this city, home to about 65,000 people.
The unofficial Orange County mooning mecca and neighboring cities spent between $15,000 to $20,000 in law enforcement costs last year when deputies and police officers from four departments used riot gear, shotguns and a helicopter to ensure the crowd would leave peacefully. No arrests were made.
Late last month the City Council also agreed to pay a public relations firm about $17,500 for outreach about this year’s event, the city said. And Linda Solorza, chief of police services for Laguna Niguel, which contracts with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, wrote in a report to the council that it is anticipated the city will “incur extraordinary overtime costs” for law enforcement personnel for the July 11 event, its 30th anniversary.
“Our intent is not to shut down the event or stifle harmless fun,” she also wrote.
As part of its plan to manage this year’s event, the city this week prohibited drinking of alcoholic beverages, urination and defecation in public. In addition, it established temporary parking restrictions on Camino Capistrano from the north to the south city limits.
The mooning largely occurs at the train tracks near the Mugs Away Saloon on Camino Capistrano, a street which has only one way in and out. Last year emergency vehicles couldn’t get through to give medical aid and police weren’t able to control the crowd, officials said.
Some patrons of Mugs Away and others don’t see an issue with the mooning, even with all the people descending on town. But many customers and nearby businesses generally agree with putting some controls on the crowd that is expected for the mooning this summer.
It isn’t the money, even though times are tough, said Councilman Paul Glaab, which prompted the city to act.
The event could be a liability for the city and poses a danger to public safety, given reports of revelers last year blocking driveways, urinating and baring more than their bottoms in public, he said.
“What started out as family fun thing for giggles and grins could turn out to where we’d be looking at terrible consequences,” Glaab said, adding that the city would like to see the event return to the more benign gathering it was in years past.
“If it turned out be where grandmas and 8 year olds drop their drawers (to moon the trains), we have no problem with that,” he said. “What we’re trying to make go away (are) the 10,000 people, many of whom were breaking the law.”
“I know some people say this is a veiled attempt to end the project,” Glaab said.
The city sought to control this year’s planned mooning after learning that it was being heavily promoted on social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, he said.
“We had a real potentially disastrous situation as a result of that,” he said. “We feel like we have no choice.”
Mugs Away Saloon is ground zero on mooning day.
“I never saw it out of control,” said Glenn Manth, 53, a painting contractor and a patron sipping beer there on a mid-afternoon this week. “I don’t think it will ever fade away. The train slows down and passengers take pictures, or moon back from the train. It’s not very different from Swallows’ Day in San Juan.”
Rebecca Shahan has been tending bar three years here and says the mooning, which packs the bar to capacity, has caused no problems. She and others say nearby businesses rent portable restrooms and private entrepreneurship thrives with vendors hawking hot dogs and other eats, soda and water.
Gregg Adams, 58, closes his woodworking shop, a few doors from Mugs Away, on Saturdays – the traditional annual mooning day – anyway, but says the party needs limits. He compared the atmosphere at the mooning event to Woodstock, the infamous three-day 1969 music and drug fest in New York.
“I’m surprised the city let (mooning) go on for so long,” he said. “Sometime people start getting wasted on Friday, and by the evening the whole street is taken up. But it’s stupid for cops to break it up (midday). They just put people on the freeway after they’ve been drinking, no time to sober up.”
Adams said that businesses bring in portable toilets, “But it’s totally unsupervised. They should have a sobriety checkpoint, because if people knew there was a checkpoint, they’d decrease the amount of alcohol.”
Brad Horn, 56, keeps his manufacturing business open on the day of the mooning. He feels that the last year’s crackdown was unnecessary.
“They shut it down for no reason,” Horn said. “It’s never been an issue before. Who do we bother down here? We maintain control; we police it ourselves. We offer food and water, but last year they shut it down and sent drunks onto the freeway.”
Dan Howard’s mail order business stays closed. He participates in the fun and games but he acknowledges the party needs some boundaries.
“It’s fun, and people on the train enjoy it,” he said. “As for nudity, it’s ‘booze for boobs.’ Even business owners down here do it. It’s a drink fest.”
Howard said crowds generate income for local businesses, but city officials doubt that, saying many people last year came in campers and brought their own booze.
“I personally have not seen any economic benefits and probably the overriding sentiment is that at least last year things got to the point that businesses we hear from (said) that their legitimate customers couldn’t gain access to their properties,” said Laguna Niguel City Manager Tim Casey.
In previous years, mooning in Laguna Niguel has not been a major issue.
“Nothing like 2008,” Casey said, “It’s been ramping up over the years. You could certainly sense that the crowds were growing and 2008 took it over the top. (It was the) first time we really had to engage our own personnel to basically shut down the event mid afternoon.”
That was then.
Thousands of images and references to the Amtrak mooning can be found on internet searches including an unofficial mooning site that solicits photos and even offers this disclaimer:
“Attending this event may be hazardous due to the large concentration of silly people, cars, motorcycles, motor homes, concrete vehicle wheel-stops, potholes & cracks in the road & parking-lots and dangerous pets. Everyone present is responsible for their own actions. If you trip on something, or hurt yourself, you alone are responsible. There is no one to sue. … No one is carrying public liability insurance for this. Besides, would any insurance underwriter insure an event called, ‘Mooning Amtrak’?”
The origins of this Orange County phenomenon (it’s been featured on the Discovery Channel, the Travel Channel, and “Ripley’s Believe it or Not”) are a bit fuzzy. It supposedly started 28 years ago in the Mugs Away Saloon when patron K.T. Smith vowed to buy a drink for anyone who’d cross the street and moon a train.
But ask if anyone remembers this guy and people say no. He moved to Idaho. Or Iowa. Or somewhere. Regardless, the legend lives on. And it’s morphed into one of the most bizarre assemblages of humanity you’ll meet anywhere: part Family Day, part “Girls Gone Wild,” part street fair with Mom; part Harley Rally on Spring Break.
Readers chimed in when The Register first reported the tightened city restrictions.
“xxxzorroxx” wrote: “First off, never seen any defecation, and yes the few that show the boobs are ones you would rather not see. … We have a few that are mortally offended but I detect some laughter from the rest. That is the whole point, it is a time where people come together and just have a little fun, laughing at ourselves, is that such a crime.”
Wrote “mytwodollars”: “Only in America, where we’re so inhibited by and shy about nudity, would this be a story, or grab interest. People overseas must be reading this and going, “Yeah, we do that too. We even have a name for the event: `Thursday'”.
And “bicycle4life” chimed in with this: “Shutting down this event is the last thing Amtrak would like have happen. The trains are sold out. I think I heard the Metrolink added more trains for service that weekend. Really, people still get offended by nudity? The urination and such I understand, but nudity, go figure.”
Amtrak is mum on the city’s tightened restrictions for the event.
The mooning does not fill up the trains, which run at full capacity during summer months anyway, the busiest travel season, said Varnay Graham, an Amtrak spokeswoman in Oakland.
Would the rail line like to see the event stopped?
“Amtrak does not actively participate in this event. It’s something that’s been going on with the local community there,” said Graham, adding that it cares about the safety of its passengers and does not want any distractions in safe train operations.