The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 255

CORONA DEL MAR STRIP f-V Shops Find Sunshine in a Giant's Shadow urange Connty FORTUNE Writer i-t tPx' fit- it -Hw- ml 7 'LT Lhr T-J BY THOMAS Timet Staff CORONA DEL MAR It takes a special effort to make a go of a business located in the shadow of a huge shopping center, boxed in without sufficient parking, and fronting on a congested highway. Yet, with all these strikes against them, most of the merchants along the Corona del Mar commercial strip are holding their own. The strip is not booming, but neither is it dying. Vacancy signs are few, and customers still dare to interrupt Coast Highway traffic to dock in curbside spaces. Siphoning off of customers from established downtown commercial districts is a familiar tale in this era of the regional shopping center.

But Corona del Mar's strip is different. It has survived, although not unscathed, because its personality matches that of the community it serves. The places new whopping centers really seem to harm are older downtown areas. The Corona del Mar business center acts more like a people and good weather' neighborhood' shopping area a lot of small shops serving the neighborhood," observes Richard Hogan, Newport Beach community development director. Fashion Island manager Reg Jones seconds this view.

"The merchants there reflect the image of the area itself." One secret of the Corona del Mar merchants' survival is an aura of casual sociability which seems to be valued by their clientele. "People tell me, 'I don't go up there (to Fashion Island shopping My heavens, I don't go up there mvself." says toy store owner Billie McNeilly. Hal Wheatley brags that he can sell a television set "for $50 more than up on the hill. Our customers know our first names. We' know where they live.

They take our ad-' vice." The surrounding area still is a cottage area, although duplexes inexorably are making inroads. More oldsters live in Corona del Mar than anywhere else in Newport Beach. The community outlook is small town an enclave in cosmopolitan Newport Beach. The commercial strip 'Was hurt when glamorous Fashion Island opened in 1967. The new shopping -4 na del Mar's problems for 1 I i X.ni iniiiifTiin r-rr n'-ifmni-fr i -t i i i i- i i i BUSINESS DISTRICT Corona del district glows at dusk in aerial view Highway.

Businesses are hemmed highway and residential areas. Times photo by Deris Jeannette center was elegant, highly visible, and only a mile to two miles away. Quite a number of vacancy signs appeared along Coast Highway thereafter. But in the seven years since, the strip has come back. Those who remember those days say they were plenty worried at first.

But a hard corps among the merchants stood fast. Not everyone was affected the same. Drugstore owner Bryant Chris-tensen recalls, "I thought it wa3 'Every problem doesn't have to be solved' going to clobber me, but it didn't. I had an increase of business. I never figured it out.

Customers aren't that loyal. They buy where it's handy." It was different for Paul Bruce, who with his wife owns a lingerie shop. "It was just like the lights went out. If we hadn't had other income we would have folded," he said. Some of the early casualties of Fashion Island competition were a small department store and a men's clothing store.

Other merchants, selling items available alt Fashion Island and not able to match discount prices available to the big stores' buyers, were forced to try harder with services like free gift wrapping. A sporting goods store moved from Corona del Mar to the new center. A stock brokerage office and several doctors with offices on the strip moved to the high-rise buildings of 'Still a nice town but it's getting congested' Newport Center, which includes Fashion Island. But that first impact is long part. Merchants now see some good points in having the center close by especially in what might be called spillover shopping.

Customers attracted by Fashion Island from points downcoast, including Emerald Bay, Laguna Beach and Monarch Bay, sometimes stop in Corona del Mar. And when prices have been high or certain items were in short supply at Fashion Island stores, there has been fallout for Corona del Mar. Please Turn to Page 4, Col. 1 1 business day, compounding parking patrons of a wide variety of firms. Times photos by Maxine Reams Still further appeal attempt is almost cer-; tain because of the stakes involved.

Such a license may be $25 million to $30 million, industry observers say. The Fidelity challenge originally was mounted by Chaffee; Dr. Louis Cella a Santa Ana surgeon; Leisure World developer Ross Cortese, and William Simon, former head of the FBI in Los Angeles and now a 1 lawyer there. The group was later expanded, Cortese dropped out, and the 19 current stockholders include about five Orange County residents. Fidelity won the first round.

please Turn to Page 6, Col. 1 i. turn ts lT" Fuzzy PART XI RA SUNDAY, JUNE 30, 1974 HICHAM) BUFfUM The Safe There's talk going around, stimulated by the tragedy of the sinking of the yacht Shooting Star off Baja California, that perhaps the U. S. Coast Guard or some other government agency should "do something" about a nationwide increase in boating accidents and fatalities by licensing the operators of recreational boats.

i It would be something similar to tests given motor vehicle opera- lUX St Frankly, I'm not overly enamored with the proposal although some means must be found to educate those, preferably on a voluntary basis, who think boating Is as simple and safe as taking the jungle ride at Disneyland. Right here I must lay to rest the notion that there's a necessary relation between what happened to the Shooting Star, with 10 aboard, including County Supervisor Ronald Caspers and its owner-skipper Fred Harber, and-a 25 nation wide increase in boating fatalities during 1973. The cause of the Shooting Star's which has raised post mortem questions as to her structural reliability, among others, will most likely remain conjectural. For the purpose of this column it is relevant only to making one point, with the help pf Hilaire. who "Truth iSQne of the great gifts of the sea.

You cannot persuade yourself nor listen to the persuasion of another that the wind is not blowing when it is, or that a cabin with a half foot of water in it is dry, or that a dragging anchor holds. Everywhere the sea is a teacher of truth. I'm not sure that the best thing I find in sailing is not this salt of reality." The point is that, confronted by 1 this kind of reality, errors of judgment, even among the most seasoned of boat operators, can sometimes prove disastrous. A tragic quirk of fate is no respecter of whether a skipper is licensed or not. However, fate's scale is tipped in favor of preserving the sailor possessing the most education and experience in the ways of the sea and his boat.

i To this end, I must strongly advise the would-be skipper of even a riinorViv'n avail Viimcplf nf t1it am. pie nautical literature on the subject of boat handling and maintenance, rules of the road and piloting before he sets out in his craft. Excellent formal courses, are available from the U. Coast Guard Auxiliary and the U. S.

Power Squadron, a local unit of which goes by the name of the Balboa Power Squadron and may be contacted at P. O. Box 1603, Newport Beach. A typical course, usually held weekly in the evenings, would cover boat handling in both normal and abnormal conditions, seamanship and common emergencies, rules of the road, aids to navigation, compass and chart familiarization, running lights and equipment, piloting and boat trailering and inland boating. Certainly knowledge gained in such a course, coupled with judgment, would have reduced the total of 128 boat-related deaths in California last year.

This represents a 13 increase over the 1972 total of 113. Among the categories listed by the Department of Navigation and Ocean Development, the highest boating fatality activity was fishing, claiming 44 lives. Cruising claimed 36 lives. Twenty lives were lost running white water or fast-moving rivers. Boats involved in accidents while anchored or docked accounted for 13 deaths, three while boats were maneuvering, four while skiing, four while hunting and four while drifting.

Many of the fatalities involved canoes, kayaks and inflatable rafts. Mar business looking south TV for Orange County and the south Los Angeles area, has been challenging the license of KHJ-TV (Channel 9) in Los Angeles since 1965. Three other groups down from; 4 an original six are contending for the right to operate Channel 56, new UHF station destined for Anaheim. .3 5 Both efforts reflect the long, tor-' tuous route to winning a TV license. Neither of the struggles is likely to end1 soon.

And even when and if- they are successful, obstacles will a 'Meanwhile, Orange County's peo-i pie and wealth and diversity, when contrasted with its lack of TV, make along Coast in by the busy OVER THE COUNTER Jean Willnas; operator of Jeani's. a food shop on the Corona del Mar stripy gives service with a smile. HIGHWAY CONGESTION Traffic backs up at Coast Highway signal light in the middle of Coro County: Picture's Orange Commercial 1 BY DALE FETIIERLING Time Staff Wrttw What do North Pole, N.Y., and Hay Springs, have that Orange County doesn't? For one thing, a commercial television station. I ttespite being the second largest county in the nation's most populous state; despite being one of the Census Bureau's standard metropolitan statistical areas; despite an, affluence and life-style that some de? scribe as unique, Orange County and its 1.6 million residents have no lo-' cal commercial TY; that investors aren't One group, laying claim to serving that'll last forever: the subway construction there and our application," says Walter Chaffee, a Fullerton attorney and secretary of Fidelity. Indeed, the case one of the first challenges filed against an existing licensee has become highly com-1 plex.

It took four years for Fidelity to win at the hearing examiner level. It took another four years and two court orders for commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission to rule ill favor of KHJ. The case is now before the Court of Appeals in Washington, P.O., where, whatever the a for what one broadcasting specialist calls "an interesting predicament." "I don't for the; life of the think that something won't happen (to-bring TV to the area)," he said. "It's bound to happen. It's just a question of who will have the ingenuity arid foresight to put together' a' station that' will knock 'em (existing stations) out." One group that's trj'ing is Fidelity Television which has been seeking, for nine years to wrest away KHJ's license and establish a station aimed at the Orange County, Long Beach, and Norwalk areas.

"There's a joke. going around in about, the two things.