Costa Mesa Cracks Down on Laborers

Seeking to further restrict dayworkers from gathering on city streets, the Costa Mesa City Council moved Tuesday to give police the power to arrest people who appear to be soliciting work even if they are not actually seen doing so.

In amending the city’s day-worker ordinance, the council voted 3 to 2 early Tuesday to make it illegal for a person seeking work to be within 300 feet of three locations “with the intent to solicit employment from an occupant of any motor vehicle.”

The amendment would strengthen the existing ordinance by allowing police to arrest anyone who appears to have the intent of soliciting employment from a motor vehicle.

Formerly, the city ordinance banned curbside solicitation of employment but made no reference to police involvement.

Council members Mary Hornbuckle and Sandra L. Genis voted against the measure.

“This is downright silly,” Hornbuckle said. “I have a great deal of trouble having our own Police Department stopping people from seeking work.”

Backed by Mayor

But Mayor Peter F. Buffa said it would help reduce the number of undocumented aliens who come to Costa Mesa seeking jobs.

Buffa said last year’s ordinance had failed to stop workers from gathering each morning at the corner of 18th Street and Harbor Boulevard, at Santa Ana Avenue and East 20th Street and at Lions Park.

The locations were cited by police as having the heaviest concentrations of day laborers.

The council took up the topic shortly before 1 a.m. after taking more than four hours to decide the fate of a Costa Mesa nonprofit center that provides food and other essentials for needy people.

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Supporters of the amendment have argued that it is needed because other efforts, including the establishment of a city-sponsored hiring center on Placentia Avenue, have failed to eliminate problems caused by large gatherings of dayworkers.

Civil libertarians and immigrant-rights groups have charged that the law is impossible to enforce and that it targets Latinos.

Costa Mesa, like other cities in the county, has been frustrated in its efforts to deal with increasing numbers of Latino workers, many of them here illegally, who gather on street corners or in parking lots waiting for prospective employers.