Saturday morning, I walked down to Coast Highway to catch the big OCTA bus, because it runs hourly on the weekend before the trolleys. I got on and at the next bus stop, the bus driver stepped out of his seat and, pointing to a man in the back of the bus, said, “This is your last stop. Get off.” The man questioned him, and the driver repeated his request. A lady upfront pointed to a second man and told the driver he should be asked to get off, too. The driver said, “I didn’t hear him.” The man got off. Since I had just got on the bus, I assumed the man who was told to exit was using course language, which is not tolerated because of children and a certain good behavior expected by OCTA.
I got off and went to the to read the morning newspaper at our downtown county library. I sat down at a table and within a few minutes, what appeared to be a homeless man sat down at the table. I wondered why, since there were four empty tables around me. He seemed really out of it, so I moved to another table.
After my visit to our wonderful library, and I mean that seriously, I walked over to the trolley stop on Beach Street and caught a trolley going south. When we stopped at Main Beach, the driver didn’t open the door right away, and a man in a red baseball cap hit the door with all of his might. He got off with me at the stop near Taco Bell, where I was going. I was eating my nachos and soft taco and looked up and the same man in the red baseball cap was standing at the counter arguing with the manager near the front door. All of a sudden, he came around with his fist hitting the wall right near the manager’s head and kicked the front door and exited. I got up and told the manager I had seen him on the trolley and he was bad news. The manager said he had called the police about him twice. Later, I called the police and told them about the man in the red hat, and by that time, they had arrived at Taco Bell to talk to the manager.
The three incidents in one morning didn’t surprise me.
Roger Carter, Laguna Beach
So sad and appalling what has become of Laguna Beach….