THE VERDICT:Balboa Island noise? It doesn’t sound right

I notice that there seems to be some controversy about noise on Balboa Island. Balboa Island? Noise? It certainly wasn’t that way in the old days.

I grew up with a rather condescending attitude toward Balboa Island because it was so quiet.

Balboa Penninsula, where I lived, was a rude, crude, noisy honky-tonk resort. Balboa Island was quiet, staid, respectable — a bedroom community.

I suppose that one reared in the early West, in Dodge City or Tombstone, would find Mingo, Iowa, a little dull, just as one reared on Bourbon Street in New Orleans would find life in an Amish village downright dreary. Apparently, my jaundiced view of Balboa Island was shared by others.

When faced with the request of Balboa Island to be annexed to the city of Newport Beach, the then-mayor said, “Balboa Island is a dump. It was sold by a bunch of crooks to a lot of damned fools.”

He may have felt that was because it was under water a great deal of the time. Before the present bulkhead was constructed, Balboa Island was almost completely immersed at high tide.

In those early days, Main Street in Balboa surged with a noisy, ribald crowd on Saturday night. The same Saturday night you could shoot a Gatling gun down Marine Avenue on Balboa Island and never endanger a soul.

Balboa never had fewer than three wide-open gambling joints collecting money from the suckers. Balboa Island didn’t even have church-sponsored bingo.

Balboa had two dance halls, the Pavilion and the Rendezvous. Balboa Island had none.

During Prohibition days, Balboa had its justly famous Drugless Drug store, where, as I’ve pointed out, you couldn’t buy so much as an aspirin tablet, but you could get illegal straight alcohol across the counter for two-bits an ounce. Not only was Balboa Island’s pharmacy on the up and up, the place didn’t even have a bootlegger. And after the repeal of Prohibition, while Balboa has never had fewer than six bars, Balboa Island has never had more than one.

What Balboa Island did have was people. It grew and grew and grew until today you can’t find a parking place on the island except maybe on a dreary day in February.

What Balboa Island also had was boats. Balboa lived on Main Street and the ocean. Since Balboa Island didn’t have either a Main Street or an ocean, it turned to the bay and boats, lots and lots of boats. Every kid on the island had a boat. Sea Sleds, Runabouts, Sabots, Bay Sloops, Flappers, R Boats, Sand Dabs, Sand Dollars, Sea Mews, Skimmers and, of course, Snow Birds and Star Boats.

Quiet boats, you notice. So noise on Balboa Island? I don’t buy it.