Ranch Feud Erupts Over Gate Lock

A frontier-style confrontation ended peacefully Monday when Trabuco Canyon rancher Sam Porter and his neighbor struck a compromise that will allow 80 people to continue using a dirt road to reach their homes on Porter’s property.

Owners of Sakaida Nursery early Monday briefly blocked the only road leading to Porter’s 236-acre spread after complaining that Porter had repeatedly failed to adequately secure a gate on the private road that runs through the nursery. Henry Sakaida, whose family owns the adjacent 80-acre nursery, said the business had been vandalized in recent months as a result of the unsecured gate.

When Porter, an outspoken rancher who ran for county supervisor last year, discovered about dawn Monday that the road had been blocked with wood barricades, he dialed 911 and called for Orange County sheriff’s deputies. Three hours later, with deputies acting as mediators, Sakaida agreed to reopen the road after Porter promised to secure the gate with a key lock.

Sakaida said Porter had been using a combination lock but had written the combination on the back of the lock as well as a fence post.

“Anybody with two eyes could see it,” Sakaida said. “I don’t call that protection.”

Porter said Sakaida’s action was “uncalled for” and “blockaded” about 80 people who live in a myriad of shacks, trailers and abandoned boxcars in an area of the ranch known as “Porterville.” Ironically, some of those who rent housing from Porter and were kept from getting out Monday work at the Sakaida nursery, which has operated in Trabuco Canyon northeast of Mission Viejo for 62 years.

Porter said he left the combination visible because some of the locks had been broken recently and it was difficult to keep informing his tenants of the new combination. Porter also said that denying him access to his property violated a longstanding easement agreement he acquired when his family bought the land years ago.

Without access to the nursery, Porter said, he and his family would have to walk about one-quarter mile to enter the ranch.