FULLERTON, Calif. -- Once-sleepy Fullerton is now a magnet for the young party crowd, but the city fathers say the revitalization has become more trouble than it is worth.

"Fullerton is a good city, and it can't go to hell in a handbasket," City Councilman Richard Jones told the Los Angeles Times. "But with all the drinking and tailgating and the urinating outside buildings, this place has become intolerable -- like the wild, wild West of 150 years ago. We've got to get things under control. If not, we may have to exhume Wyatt Earp."

Over the past year, four police officers have been trying to rein in unruly revelers along Harbor Boulevard and Commonwealth Avenue, and the city has put a six-month moratorium on new liquor licenses -- all with little effect.

In May, a cabbie was attacked and killed, allegedly by a man who had been drinking in the downtown bars. In September, three late-night revelers from the Riverside area were leaving downtown when their vehicle hit a median and rolled over -- killing the driver, whose blood alcohol level was over the legal limit, The Times reported.

Police said most of those arrested for alcohol-related offenses are from the Inland Empire and Los Angeles County. With nearly 50 establishments serving liquor and many of them connected through rear parking lots, tailgating before heading into the bars has become popular.

"We've definitely become a destination, sort of a smaller version of the Gaslamp district in San Diego," Fullerton police Sgt. Linda King told The Times. "There's so many places close to each other, people are doing pub crawls from place to place."

Fullerton officials said the cost of maintaining the peace downtown -- about $1.5 million annually --- has outstripped tax revenues from the businesses supporting the revelry, which totals about $560,000, The Times reported.

A recently passed ordinance, which takes effect next month, calls for noise limits inside and outside establishments, tighter security, shorter wait lines and conditional-use permits for restaurants that transform into nightclubs after 10 p.m.

City Councilwoman Pam Keller described downtown like an out-of-control teenager.

"We had this quiet little downtown for so long, so we encouraged all these restaurants and bars to come," she told the newspaper. "We didn't put the conditions on them because we needed them. And suddenly we've got this little baby that we ignored and she's turned into this naughty teenager. Now we're making some rules, trying to get that teenager into adulthood without getting killed."