Corona del Mar Today: Heroin, meth are teen drugs of choice, officer says
Marijuana, pills and alcohol may have been staples of wild teen parties in the past, but more and more, students are using heroin and methamphetamine, an undercover Newport Beach police detective told members of the Corona del Mar High School PTA at a meeting Wednesday.
“In the past few years, especially here and in other affluent communities, there’s a pretty disturbing trend,” said the officer, whose name is being withheld at the department’s request to protect his anonymity. “There’s a trend from marijuana. Now we’re seeing a lot of people getting into heroin — black tar heroin — as young as junior high. They get hooked at 15 or 16 years old, and it’s a lifelong struggle to stay off.”
The officer, along with school resource officer Vlad Anderson and a drug-addiction expert, spoke to about 40 members of the PTA at the group’s first meeting of the new year.
The undercover officer demonstrated how someone would heat a piece of foil, with heroin on top, to create smoke that can be inhaled, often through an empty pen cartridge.
“Kids shouldn’t be carrying around foil,” he said. “And if they are, they’re probably not making a sandwich.”
If the foil has black marks, smoke stains or a vinegar smell, the officer said, it could indicate drug use.
Anderson said he knew of one young adult who died in the past year in Newport Coast of a drug overdose. Officers did not provide information about drug use on the Corona del Mar High School campus specifically but said drugs are a countywide problem.
Police try to identify and arrest dealers, the undercover officer said, but arrests don’t eliminate the problems.
“We never can really stem the flow,” he said. “If there’s a demand, there always will be a supply.”
Meth, he said, also is a problem, with some users taking both narcotics.
Anderson also set up a display showing different drugs and paraphernalia, as well as antiseptic wipes for PTA members to use if they touched the display.
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El Cholo to open in February
Corona del Mar’s El Cholo restaurant, which originally was scheduled for a September or October 2014 opening, now will open in February, according to the restaurant’s webpage.
“El Cholo Irvine has officially closed,” the website states. “Please visit us at our new location at Corona del Mar in February 2015!”
The restaurant, located at 3520 East Coast Highway, will replace Landmark, which closed in April.
A company spokesman said last spring that the El Cholo located at 5465 Alton Parkway in Irvine had lost its lease. That location was going to close in September, but it ended up staying open through the holiday season.
The restaurant’s management planned to move decorative items and some inventory from the Irvine location to Corona del Mar, and some staff also would relocate.
The Irvine location had been open for 15 years.
Online records for the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control indicate that El Cholo’s Corona del Mar location was granted a license to sell alcohol on May 30.
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Police Department promotes personnel
The Newport Beach Police Department conducted a promotional ceremony in the Civic Center’s Community Room.
The officers and employees honored at the ceremony included: Jon Lewis, who was promoted from lieutenant to deputy chief; Joseph Cartwright and Randy Querry, who were promoted from sergeant to lieutenant; Eric Little, who was promoted from police officer to sergeant; Wendy Joe and Kjersti Martini, who were promoted from community relations officers to civilian investigators; Claudia Barboza, who was recognized for her October promotion from cadet to part-time custody officer; and Eric Rosenberg, who was sworn in as a police officer after serving in Santa Barbara.
Corona del Mar Today appears Sundays in the Daily Pilot. Read daily updates at coronadelmartoday.com.