Thousand Oaks Rejects Dealers’ Request : Informal Car Mart Will Stay Put

The Thousand Oaks City Council on Tuesday night rejected, 3 to 2, a request by auto dealers that it outlaw informal used-car trading that has proliferated around the Thousand Oaks Auto Center, the city’s upscale auto row.

Councilwoman Madge Schaefer, who voted against an ordinance endorsed by the auto dealers, said the city could solve the problem by “simply enforcing the laws already on the books.”

Allen Camp, an attorney representing the 10 auto dealers in the auto center, said the dealers’ request for the ordinance was not prompted by fear of competition.

“If competition was their concern, not one of these dealers would be in the auto center,” Camp said at a hearing on the ordinance.

Weekend Congestion

The auto dealers in the sparkling auto center on the eastern edge of the Ventura County city, just a few paces from the Ventura Freeway, appealed to City Hall for help after hundreds of motorists and pedestrians began clogging the main drag of the auto center every weekend to check out the privately owned cars parked along the street with “For Sale” signs in their windows.

Every Saturday and Sunday morning, more than a hundred people who are selling their cars park and lock them across the street from the dealers on Duesenberg Drive and then disappear for the rest of the day.

The proposed ordinance essentially would have created a new parking zone. In the zone, which would have been immediately applied to Duesenberg Drive, it would have been illegal to park a car advertised for sale.

Proposed 2 Weeks Ago

City Atty. Mark Sellers proposed the ordinance two weeks ago, but the council delayed its vote until Tuesday night to allow a city investigation.

At the council’s request, sheriff’s deputies cruised the street Saturday issuing citations to motorists who were double-parked or had crossed the double center line to get around double-parked cars.

Sheriff’s Commander Oscar Fuller told the council Tuesday that as many as 112 cars were for sale last weekend and that officers issued 12 citations for impeding traffic or double parking. He said there was “quite a lot of hostility” toward the officers.

Warning From ACLU

But Art Bedard, vice president of the Ventura County chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, warned the council that he believes the ordinance would violate car sellers’ constitutional right to free speech and curtail free trade. Bedard said he would help the sellers file a lawsuit if the ordinance passed.

Two council members have suggested setting aside other areas of the city, perhaps on city-owned land, for private car sales.