Usual Labor Day Crowds Expected for Roads, Malls

The final weekend of summer vacation is expected to send crowds to Orange County beaches and shopping malls in search of sunshine and school clothes.

The three-day holiday will also multiply highway traffic, and police throughout the county plan added extra patrols on the roads and in the air to promote safety and sobriety.

Crowds of about 75,000 a day are expected through the holiday at Newport Beach, according to veteran lifeguard dispatcher Sean Wiggins. “That’s not a big Labor Day crowd,” Wiggins said. “The weather’s been cold and overcast,” he said, but crowd size “depends on the temperature inland.”

Dave Beusterien, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times, predicted that warming conditions inland will indeed drive many people to the beach.

Saturday’s forecast ranges from 70 degrees in Newport and 76 in Laguna Beach to 85 in Santa Ana and 87 in San Juan Capistrano, Beusterien said.

The warm weather system now sitting over the Western United States could give way to a storm system from Arizona by late Saturday, he said. That front could bring moisture and clouds to Southern California mountain and desert areas, with rain a possibility there by late Sunday or Monday.

“It’s not out of the realm of possibility--but it is very remote--that the Los Angeles basin could see some showers on Monday,” Beusterien said.

Police were also girding for a busy weekend. According to the California Highway Patrol, 64 people were killed on highways in the state over the Labor Day weekend last year; another 2,154 were arrested for traffic offenses.

In anticipation of heavy traffic, nine airplanes will patrol Interstate 5 from the Oregon border to Mexico, according to CHP Officer Michael Lundquist. In Orange County, “the maximum number of enforcement units” will be patrolling the Santa Ana Freeway.

Police in Brea and Garden Grove will be taking special measures to snare drunken drivers, whose numbers are expected to increase because of the extended weekend.

Brea police will set up a sobriety checkpoint on Carbon Canyon Road at the entrance to Carbon Canyon Park, Lt. Cliff Trimble said. The checkpoint, for eastbound traffic, will operate from 8 p.m. today to 3 a.m. Saturday.

There has been a significant drunk-driving problem on that road, Trimble said. In 1987, 13% of the traffic crashes on Carbon Canyon Road involved drunk drivers, he said. In those, one person was killed and four were injured, he said.

In Garden Grove, police will use a seven-officer mobile detail to supplement regular traffic patrols rather than setting up a stationary checkpoint, Lt. Ken Whitman said.

“A sobriety checkpoint is cumbersome to move on a few minutes’ notice,” he said. The mobile units can respond to various areas on short notice rather than being “committed to a fixed point,” he said. “We want to make this a safe weekend.”

Traffic--of the biped variety--also is expected to be heavy in stores and malls across the county.

Labor Day “is normally a big shopping day because it’s just prior to the start of school,” said Jane Reid, marketing director of Westminster Mall, where 160 stores will be open Monday.

About 350,000 students are expected to start classes in Orange County elementary and secondary schools over the next two weeks. Most of Orange County’s 29 school districts open for the 1988-89 school year after the Labor Day holiday.

Two systems, the Yorba Linda Elementary School District and the Orange Unified School District, opened Thursday.

Sixteen districts will begin classes Tuesday. They are Anaheim City Elementary, Buena Park Elementary, Cypress Elementary, Fountain Valley Elementary, Fullerton Elementary, Fullerton Joint Union High School, Huntington Beach City Elementary, Huntington Beach Union High School, La Habra Elementary, Lowell Elementary Joint School District, Ocean View Elementary, Westminster Elementary, Newport-Mesa Unified, Placentia Unified, Saddleback Valley Unified and Santa Ana Unified.

Two districts will open classes Wednesday. They are Magnolia Elementary and Brea-Olinda Unified.

Eight districts’ classes will begin Thursday. They are Anaheim Union High School, Centralia Elementary, Capistrano Unified, Garden Grove Unified, Irvine Unified, Laguna Beach Unified, Los Alamitos Unified and Tustin Unified.

The final school system to begin fall classes will be the tiny Savanna Elementary School District in the Anaheim area. Its first day is Sept. 12.