Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, August 28, 1994                   TAG: 9408310030
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: E3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                                 LENGTH: Medium

5 YEARS LATER, VA. BEACH BLOTS OUT RIOT MEMORY

In 1989 it was known as Greekfest, three days of college-age revelers marking the final free weekend before school resumes. It turned ugly, and the National Guard was summoned to quell the violence.

This year, it's called the American Music Festival, and its planners hope the capstone act, the Beach Boys, will blot out the dark memories of Greekfest.

``We learned a lot of things over the last five years,'' said Rick Anoia, head of the resort leadership council for the Virginia Beach Hotel and Motel Association. ``We're trying to implement things so we can maintain a nice, comfortable weekend for everybody.''

Greekfest 1989 grew unusually huge as some 100,000 people flooded the boardwalk and Atlantic Avenue, the main street along the strip of resort hotels.

With few organized activities, the throng had little to do but mingle, talk and dance. When police moved in to clear some areas, tensions boiled over and sporadic clashes erupted.

In two nights of violence, more than 100 stores were looted or damaged and hundreds of people were arrested. About 50 people were injured; nobody was killed. The damage was estimated at $1.4 million.

During the 1990 Labor Day weekend, city officials tried to manage every aspect of the holiday to prevent more violence. Traffic was kept away from the main resort area; identification badges were needed to get into hotels. Concerts were staged in a city park well away from the oceanfront.

All the planning kept the peace, but it also kept away people, except for an overwhelming police presence. Crowds did not return to more normal levels until 1991 and 1992.

Television images of helmeted police battling young blacks underscored ``an attitude of exclusion of certain people'' that existed here then, said E. George Minns, head of the Virginia Beach chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

But age, not race, sparked the violence that weekend, he said.

Since the riots, the city has become more open to blacks, he said. It created a police department citizens' review panel and hired more black officers. Also, more officers go into black neighborhoods to meet and talk with people instead of just making arrests.

``All of this has been therapeutic for both blacks and whites,'' Minns said. ``We have seen each other in more appreciative lights.''

One of the lessons learned from Greekfest was that large crowds need something to do. For the last two years, the city's big Labor Day attraction has been a speedboat race.

But Anoia said officials had to change the focus this year because of a dispute between rival speedboat organizations. So Virginia Beach turned to a music festival and recruited the Beach Boys, the Four Tops, the Temptations and country star Billy Ray Cyrus.