Courtesy of Laguna Beach Small Business Alliance
Friday, we wrote about the debacle around the Chamber of Commerce cancelling Taste of Laguna and why we believe Mayor Orgill and/or his wife were implicated in this.
What is more important is the fact that the Board of the Festival of Arts and the City Manager put the public at risk by violating the terms of the daily alcohol permit that the head of the Alcohol and Beverage Control so graciously approved allowing them to have eight consecutive weeks of one-day alcohol licenses that are normally approved for nonprofit festival events. The conditions of the license were clear. The law firm that the Festival hired to assist in the process, Palmieri, Tyler, Wiener, Wilhelm & Waldron LLP, would have known this and should have advised their client of the terms.
Meanwhile, if the Mayor’s wife who was controlling Terra, had paid the taxes due to the Franchise Tax Board, Terra would not have had its alcohol license suspended and they wouldn’t have had to go through all of these obstacles. Remember, she was employed by the group that fraudulently took control of Terra from Mo Honarkar and whose head, Mahender, was arrested and has been charged for two felonies related to a $100 million loan-fraud scheme.
TERMS OF DAILY ALCOHOL LICENSE
The terms above were clear. The festival was allowed to serve beer and wine at Courtside Kitchen, meaning the tennis courts. They were not to allow alcohol opened or closed to leave the approved premises where patrons could then drink in the festival grounds or leave the festival grounds with alcohol that they can then consume.
Why is this important? It’s important because alcohol when consumed is supposed to be monitored by staff that are certified under the Responsible Beverage Service requirements along with security who make sure that alcohol does not leave the designated area.
The 4 points above are clear:
1. Alcohol shall be consumed only in the designated area and shall not be taken out of that area. It is clear by what the security guard said as well as the signs, the Festival was blatantly in violation.
2. Security guards should be present. This is to prevent people leaving the designated area with alcohol. Not to encourage them to do so.
3. The security should prevent people from carrying alcohol out of the designated area. Nope, same as 2. We know that didn’t happen.
4. Alcohol should be in distinctive cups so that the alcohol can be identified and different than the cups that non-alcoholic beverages are served in. In this case, they sold full bottles of wine or beer in the original containers and allowed patrons to walk out of the designated area with them. With no-one monitoring, patrons could easily transfer the alcohol into other containers and drink in the festival area, the Irvine Bowl while watching the Pageant of the Masters, or leaving the festival grounds and wandering around Laguna.
Above is the description of the type of license that the Festival had and is going to try to get again for the Coast Film Festival in October. What’s to prevent the City from breaking the law and endangering the public again.
Although the President of the Festival of the Arts, David Perry, was a practicing attorney, but is currently inactive, I trust that he still understands how to read and understand legal documents such as the one that he signed.
And when Laguna Beach Police Captain, David Dereszynski, signed the license application, I am hopeful that he along with his department understood their responsibilities in keeping the community safe as well. I am hopeful that the Chief of Police, Mr. Safest Beach City in OC Calvert, understands the terms of this license as well and why alcohol consumption must always be monitored to ensure people are not overserved.
I also trust that with a lifelong career working in municipal affairs with decades working as City Manager or Assistant City Manager, Dave Kiff would also understand how these permits work and what it means to keep alcohol in the designated area, which was easy to distinguish from other areas since the designated area was the tennis courts. Surely Dave would have noticed the signs that said only closed alcohol containers beyond this point when he attended the festival. We are not sure Mr. Kiff actually signed this as it appears slightly different than many of his other signatures. Yet, we are confident he was aware since his office issued this determination on the matter.
The determination also states that the City of Laguna Beach gets 10% of all the food and alcohol sales from this arrangement, so there is definitely a motive. I wonder what fund this revenue goes to and how it will be tracked? Hopefully, our very capable and trustworthy treasurer, Laura Paris, can answer. As you know, she is also running for City Council because she appears to be concerned with how Council and City Management is handling finances.
We first contacted City Manager Dave Kiff and City Attorney Megan Garibaldi on July 15, 2026 regarding our concerns over this issue and they never responded. The City’s determination states the following:
4. This Special Event Permit shall be subject to review and modification of the conditions of approval by the City Manager, if written complaints are received or operating conditions warrant revisions to mitigate a potential impact.
5. It is understood that the conditions of approval for Special Event Permit Application (SEP 2026-0001) shall be and hereby are obligations of and binding upon the Applicant and his/her heirs, successors, assigns, agents, and representatives. Failure to comply with such conditions, and each of them, and any other related federal, state, and local regulations may be grounds for modification or revocation of Special Event Permit Application (SEP 2026-0001).
By failing to respond to a complaint regarding legality of a state governed license, the City is violating state law. We will be contacting the California Department of Justice to further look into this matter since the City appears to be operating in a manner of organized crime since they also are receiving revenue from this arrangement.
So with the President of the Festival of Arts signing that they understand the permit, and the City Manger of Laguna Beach signing the application, and then the Laguna Beach Police Captain signing the application, how did the City and the Festival of Arts get this so so wrong?
Why were they willing to put the public at risk with unmonitored alcohol consumption just so that the Festival could make more money?
Now that the Promenade is open to the public with signs that they say “No Alcohol Beyond This Point”, should the public feel safe in the City known as the DUI Capital of California?
Should we feel safe when tens of thousands of visitors from all over will be visiting Laguna in a few weeks for the Coast Film Festival? How about when Council begins to hold more concerts at the Irvine Bowl as Councilmember Alex Rounaghi implied at the Village Laguna City Council Candidate debate?
Why does the City continue to make it impossible for businesses in town to operate, but give special deals and consideration for their friends?
The buck stops with 5 council members and 3 of them are up for election in a few months.
WE WOULD LIKE TO NOTE THAT IN ALL OUR ATTEMPTS TO CONTACT CITY COUNCIL, CITY MANAGER DAVE KIFF, AND CITY ATTORNEY MEGAN GARIBALDI, NONE HAVE RESPONDED.