Carlsbad Rhubarb : Scruffy Transients Are a Growing Nuisance, Merchants Claim

Ted Klement figured he’d seen it all. But then one morning a scruffy transient strolled into his restaurant on Elm Avenue here and locked himself in the bathroom.

Thirty minutes passed, and Klement was beginning to wonder about the fellow’s fate when suddenly he emerged--wrapped from head to toe in toilet paper. As the startled restaurateur and his patrons--pausing over their pancakes--looked on, the man paraded through the dining room and headed for the door, leaving a paper trail in his wake.

“I’ve had all kinds of really choice people give me trouble in here--screaming, showing the finger at the customers, lighting the restroom wastebasket on fire,” said Klement, who owns Mariah’s West Wind Restaurant. “But that guy wrapped like a mummy was the winner.”

Klement’s encounter with the mummified transient may have been dramatic, but in the opinion of some downtown merchants, the episode was not unusual. According to these business owners, Carlsbad, an upscale community known more for its trendy boutiques than its bums, has a feisty homeless population that is disrupting life downtown.

“The city officials may not realize it, because they don’t work day in, day out, in the village, but Carlsbad does have a homeless problem,” said Janice Selby, who owns Selby’s Tea and Coffee House, a small restaurant on a busy downtown corner. “Ever since the weather turned cold, the situation has been getting worse. It’s a shock. We’re not used to seeing this kind of undesirable, mean character in town.”

Despite the merchants’ tales of woe, civic leaders here dispute the notion that Carlsbad has suddenly become a haven for the homeless. Police and elected officials alike say they have yet to see any evidence indicating there is an escalating homeless problem in their community.

That posture has prompted some business owners to suggest that city fathers, proud of a rejuvenated downtown that has won the envy of redevelopment officials throughout the county, are either blinded by success or reluctant to confront a transient problem for fear of soiling Carlsbad’s image as a prosperous, tourist-friendly community.

“I don’t know if it’s deliberate denial of the problem or if the city officials are simply not aware of it,” said Marlene Goldberg, who owns Quo Vadis,a travel accessories shop on Grand Avenue. “But they need to look into this. Something has to be done.”

Most of the merchants with complaints own retail stores and eateries along Grand and Elm avenues, Carlsbad’s two major east-west commercial strips. These shop owners say that since cold weather set in, an increasing number of transients have begun loitering in their stores, panhandling, harassing employees and exhibiting odd behavior--hissing, swearing and screaming--until police arrive and escort them out.

“A lot of downtown business owners are women, and it can be very frightening when some of these tough guys plant themselves in your store and won’t leave,” said Goldberg, who endures an “incident” involving a disruptive transient in her store several times a week.

“It’s also very frustrating. We’re trying to set up our businesses and make this a real nice place for shopping and this harassment hurts. I don’t think the community should have to put up with that sort of thing.”

So far, merchants suffering harassment at the hands of street people have done little more than grumble about the problem among themselves. A few calls have been made to council members, and the issue has been discussed at the Downtown Village Merchants Assn. meeting, but business owners concede they are reluctant to make a fuss for fear of discouraging shoppers during the lucrative holiday season. Also, many seem somehow resigned to their fate.

“I’ve complained to police several times, but they can’t be arresting people all the time just because they look weird,” Klement said. “Many of us realize that there’s just not a good solution to the homeless.”

City officials expressed mixed reactions to the merchants’ complaints. Some say that Carlsbad has always hosted its share of the homeless, while others maintain that aside from one or two “regulars,” the city has been virtually transient-free. Most say they have not witnessed what some merchants perceive as an influx of a new, tougher-type of transient.

“There’s no question that we have homeless here, basically because we’re a beach town along the route to somewhere, north or south,” said Doug Yavanian, executive vice president of Carlsbad’s Chamber of Commerce. “I get to work real early in the morning and I see them sleeping over in the parks. Sometimes they come in and use our public restroom. But I haven’t noticed any more or less this year. There certainly isn’t an epidemic.”

Mayor Mary Casler said she has received no complaints about the situation and could offer no immediate solutions.

“I thought San Diego had the homeless problem,” Casler said, adding that Carlsbad officials, complying by supplying information for a county study of the homeless last year, “made some inquiries” and determined the city had no homeless problem.

Casler said several businessmen she queried about the issue--including a real estate agent who is president of the merchants association and an insurance salesman--did not believe downtown Carlsbad was plagued by transients.

Police Chief Vincent Jimno said that Carlsbad “has had a lot of transients over the years because, for people traveling south, we represent a convenient stopover after a long uninhabited area south of San Clemente.

“But aside from occasional calls about a few of our regular weirdos, we haven’t noticed anything significant or worrisome,” Jimno said. “Anyhow, there’s really not a lot we can do. Unless someone is really causing a disturbance, all we can do is ask them to move on. And they usually do.”

Jimno said statistics do not indicate any recent increase in calls for police assistance involving street people.

Carlsbad is not the only North County city that hosts the homeless. Although the shopping malls, subdivisions and light industrial parks that typify the landscape make them something of an anomaly, street people do exist throughout the coastal and inland territories north of San Diego.

Social workers say the suburban homeless range from drifters, looking for better work opportunities outside metropolitan areas, to the “deinstitutionalized” mentally ill. There are also thousands of undocumented workers from Mexico, who slip in and out of view as the agricultural seasons change.

There are no reliable estimates of the size of North County’s homeless population, largely because they are widely dispersed and not as visible as those sleeping on sidewalks and benches in the inner city.

As a result, street people in North County have largely escaped attention until recently. Scarcity of shelter is the most serious problem.

In Oceanside, the Catholic Community Services’ Good Samaritan has beds for 17 men, and a spokeswoman said it runs at capacity throughout the winter. Hidden Valley House in Escondido can accommodate a small number of women and children, and some social service agencies provide travelers with vouchers for one-night motel stays.

Carlsbad has no shelters or soup kitchens, but a coalition of local churches, working with police, provides travelers with money for gasoline, a meal and an occasional night’s lodging. Police Capt. Bob Vales said that fund is tapped about three times a week.

Despite city officials’ skepticism, business owners who routinely collide with unruly characters--described as a mix of regulars and newcomers--insist that a problem exists and merits attention.

Generally, merchants say the transients are merely a nuisance that is distracting and disruptive. Many will ask for food or money.

“I’ve been down and out myself, so in the beginning I used to sympathize with these guys and give them food,” said Klement. “But I guess word got around, because soon there were 20 of them on my doorstep each morning.”

Outside another business recently, a homeless person began disrobing and painting himself with shoe polish, merchants said. Frankie Runzo, co-owner of Runzo’s Candies, said that transients “with dazed eyes” occasionally wander in, looking for free samples. And Selby said that at times she has been afraid to leave her restaurant after dark because of “one totally crazy man” who often lurks near the door.

The afflicted merchants offer few solid theories on why a more aggressive breed of transient seem to be alighting in Carlsbad. Some credit redevelopment in San Diego with driving the homeless northward. Others speculate that street people, like parking shortages and traffic congestion, are the price a community pays for growing up.

“I guess we’re becoming a big city with big-city problems,” Goldberg said.

Councilman Richard Chick suggested the trouble may be linked to an increase in homeless nationwide.

“I’ve been seeing them for years here, jumping off freight trains or coming out of the bushes near the Chamber of Commerce office,” Chick said. “It’s nothing new, but maybe what we’re witnessing is an increase in the magnitude of the problem.”

Whatever the cause, Carlsbad’s homeless situation deserves study, say some merchants, who are weary of transients and fearful of their impact on business. Selby, who admits she has no brilliant solutions to the situation, would like to see police or city officials develop “an effective system, a plan” that business owners can follow when they are in a fix.

“Right now, the city doesn’t think it has a problem and so there’s no mechanism there,” said Selby, who sometimes has trouble with transients three or four times a day.

Also, a stronger police presence might help. “It sounds heartless,” Selby said, “but if the word got out that our town’s not a desirable place for homeless, maybe they’d pass us by.”

Councilwoman Ann Kulchin, who said she has received two complaints about the problem but believed they were only isolated incidents, agreed.

“My first reaction was, ‘Oh my God, we just got the downtown cleaned up and now we get the bums?”’ Kulchin said. “But if there is a problem, then we can bother (the transients), become a nuisance to them, encourage them to move on.

“Above all, we should help the shop owners. They should not have to put up with that in Carlsbad.”