Santa Ana : 200 Stage Protest at Griset Fund-Raiser

About 200 members of low-income families who say city enforcement of occupancy standards threaten them with eviction Thursday picketed the launching of Mayor Dan Griset’s campaign for state Assembly.

There were a few tense moments when security guards attempted to block protesters from coming too near a restaurant in the South Coast Village shopping center.

But tempers cooled when the picketers chanting “Families yes, evictions no” kept to the sidewalk outside Antonello’s Restaurant, where Griset was having a $200-a-plate reception.

After an hour of leaflet distribution and verbal sparring with the guards, the group boarded two buses and left.

Tenant activist Nativo Lopez said he organized the protest to focus attention on the city’s enforcement of occupancy levels that require at least 70 square feet of bedroom space for the first two tenants and another 50 square feet for each additional tenant.

Last week, the City Council endorsed that standard during a stormy council meeting at which tenants and supporters of the policy debated long into the night.

Griset disagreed with Lopez’s assertion that the enforcement is aimed at low-income Latinos, many of them illegal aliens. “The fight to maintain community standards is an issue that doesn’t reckon with color, culture or language,” he said.

Richard L. Spix, attorney for Lopez’s organization, Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, said he is hoping that Superior Court Judge Judith M. Ryan will rule in a June 24 hearing that the city has interpreted the state codes incorrectly.

Griset said he wants the city’s policy to be fair and has asked for a list of the 150 families Lopez said would be evicted under the standards. Lopez has declined and said Thursday that “we have no confidence that they will do anything with that list other than retaliate.”

Griset also suggested that Lopez not stop with protests of his campaign. In addition, he said that Lopez should seek opinions from the mayor’s opposition in the 72nd District race--Republicans Richard Longshore and George Heaney.