THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 6, 1994 TAG: 9409060071
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
The American Music Festival ended on a high note Monday as about 13,000 people - the largest crowd of the four-day event - moved to the beat of the day's headliners, the Temptations and The Four Tops.
Virginia Beach chief of staff C. Oral Lambert Jr. said the Labor Day weekend festival went so well that he anticipates a repeat next year.
``I thought it fit very neatly with our desire to be a family-oriented resort destination,'' Lambert said. ``My sense is that it was a very successful weekend, and it'll provide a foundation on which we can build in future years.''
Before then, he said, city officials will try to work out the few kinks that slowed this year's events, including too few shuttles on Atlantic Avenue and too much gridlock on Pacific.
The music festival - an ambitious effort to turn the city's image around five years after the infamous Labor Day weekend riots - got off to a windy, chilly start Friday afternoon. But the weather - and the crowds - improved during the weekend.
Throughout the holiday, police were out in force at the Oceanfront. All the city's officers were on duty and were supplemented by state police officers. Most were stationed at the Oceanfront, directing traffic, enforcing new parking regulations and making sure things didn't get out of hand, as they did in 1989.
Virginia Beach police spokesman Mike Carey said the department struck a good balance over the weekend between preventing crime and permitting fun. There were only routine arrests, typical of any summer weekend, he said.
``We just wanted to ensure that everyone who visited the Virginia Beach resort had a safe weekend,'' he said. ``I'm confident in saying we did that. Visitors seemed to have had a good time.''
But some young people interviewed at the Oceanfront over the weekend said the police presence - particularly after dark - was more confrontational than conciliatory.
``I'm down here to look at the women and cool off,'' Eric Jones of Chesapeake said Monday. ``(But) every cop is looking at me like a crook. That's offensive.''
Nate Spivey, an investment banker from Patterson, N.J., said police officers treated the crowd rudely, shouting orders and herding party-ers ``like cattle.''
``What they're really doing is forcing something to happen,'' said Spivey, 34, who has visited the Beach every Labor Day weekend since 1987.
``The cops aren't letting people have fun,'' Anthony McKenzie, of Landover, Md., said while hanging out on a wall at 19th and Atlantic Avenue about 11 p.m. Sunday. McKenzie, 20, who attends Prince George Community College in suburban Washington, said he and his friend Michael MacKenzie, 19, also of Landover, just wanted to meet girls and enjoy the freedom from their parents.
A few blocks down, Jerry Hallal, owner of The Beach Bazaar on 23rd and Atlantic, said his only complaint about the weekend was that the crowd was cheap.
``Business is terrible,'' Hallal said. ``If it costs $5, they want it for $3.''
People spend so much money on hotel rooms, Hallal said, that by the time they cross to his side of Atlantic Avenue, they don't have money left for anything but T-shirts. The one bright spot: Because the weather was so cold Friday and Saturday, sweat shirts and sweat pants were selling briskly. by CNB