LAGUNA BEACH : Problems Remain at Dayworker Sites

Despite the city’s attempts to move day laborers seeking work to a site on Laguna Canyon Road, dozens of them still gather each morning along Coast Highway in North Laguna. “There are anywhere from 10 to 100 out there,” said Perminder Singh, manager of the Circle K market at the corner of Viejo Street and North Coast Highway, where the workers mainly congregate. “The numbers change for a while, but they always come back.”

Janna Moore, community services officer for the Laguna Beach Police Department, said she has received complaints from North Laguna residents but disagreed on the numbers of laborers who gather at the market.

“We do go out there on a daily basis and try to get (laborers) to go to the designated site, but it’s a voluntary compliance situation,” she said. “There are no more than 30 usually out there.” Moore said dayworkers still congregate there because they have less competition and therefore a better chance of being hired. Also, people who hire them “don’t get as mobbed” as they do at the canyon site, where about 70 gather each day, she said.

The city spent $9,000 to improve the canyon hiring area, installing a sign to identify the site, paving a turnaround driveway, installing portable restrooms and distributing information pamphlets in Spanish.

Joe Jahraus, owner of Laguna Beach Lumber Co., said the improvements have resulted in a “dramatically better situation.”

“They’re behaving themselves pretty well,” he said of the workers who gather across the street from his business. “They’re pretty much sticking to their own side.”

But for Singh in North Laguna, the problems remain. “They give me about $100 a day in business but I’m getting no profit,” he said. “I have never seen so many new methods to steal. I’ve called the cops, but they can’t stay here 24 hours a day.”

Singh said that although the majority of the dayworkers do not interfere with his business, some accost female customers, pour coffee on the floor, defecate in the back of the store and steal his goods. The problems continue, despite an INS sweep last week that netted 16 workers there.

“There are only about 25 out there today,” Singh said after the arrests. “There will be fewer for four or five days, but then you’ll see new faces and old faces too. This isn’t the first time that’s happened.”

Despite the problems, Singh said he feels sorry for the dayworkers because they need work. “I’m a foreigner too, and I’ve been there,” said Singh, a native of India. “But if they are to ever own something, they have to be good.”