Struiksma Proposes AIDS Ordinance : Measure Would Protect Victims in Job and Housing Situations

San Diego AIDS patients would be protected against discrimination by landlords, employers and business owners--as well as forced AIDS testing--under an ordinance proposed Wednesday by City Councilman Ed Struiksma.

The ordinance would not impose criminal penalties but would allow AIDS patients to sue violators and allow a jury to decide whether the victims were illegally denied an apartment or fired from a job.

Struiksma, who on Oct. 1 asked the city attorney’s office to draft the ordinance, presented it to the council’s Public Services and Safety Committee on Wednesday morning despite the committee’s previous decision to hold off discussion on an anti-discrimination ordinance until the county Board of Supervisors acts on a similar one. The supervisors are expected to review a draft ordinance in early December.

But Struiksma pointed out that a county ordinance would govern only unincorporated areas. San Diego would have to enact its own regulations, as Los Angeles and San Francisco already have, he said.

“I believe very strongly that this city must move to protect our citizens,” Struiksma said. “Those who have contracted AIDS have suffered enough.”

Timothy Pestotnik, a lawyer at the San Diego AIDS Project’s legal clinic, said attorneys there have received a steadily increasing number of complaints from AIDS patients concerning housing, employment, insurance and confidentiality matters--including three complaints in the past week. But state and federal laws do not cover some of those situations, Pestotnik said.

Landlord’s Perception

In a recent landlord-tenant case, for example, a landlord questioned a prospective tenant about his health, based on the landlord’s perception that the applicant did not look well, Pestotnik said. The landlord then sent the applicant several newspaper articles on AIDS and ultimately denied him the apartment, Pestotnik said.

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS, is a fatal disease resulting from a virus that destroys its victims’ ability to ward off infection. Transmitted through sexual contact and blood products, and not through casual contact, AIDS has primarily affected homosexual men and intravenous drug users.

As of the end of October, 664 county residents had been diagnosed as having the disease and 361 people had died of it. The county has the nation’s second-fastest rate of growth in AIDS cases.

The ordinance would bar discrimination against anyone with AIDS or AIDS-related complex (an earlier stage of the disease), anyone infected by the virus that causes AIDS, or anyone without the disease who was discriminated against because a violator believed he had the disease.

Under language suggested by Struiksma, employers could not fire, refuse to hire, segregate, demote, fail to refer or refuse to train employees because they have AIDS. Landlords, except those who live in the same home with an AIDS victim, could not deny housing to an AIDS victim. Businesses and clubs could not deny goods or services to victims. Use of city facilities could not be denied.