Guards Start Patrol of Encinitas Camp : Migrants: The city has hired a security firm to keep an encampment of Central Americans off 18 acres of municipal land that officials say has become a health hazard.

With little fanfare, Encinitas on Wednesday began 24-hour security patrols on a secluded piece of city-owned swampland in an effort to extinguish a growing Guatemalan migrant community that has taken root there.

In an early-morning fog, Joseph Canales eased his red, four-wheel-drive truck along a dirt road behind the Big Bear market near Interstate 5, scouting out Central Americans who might have set up camp in the dense undergrowth.

Canales, the owner of Carlsbad Security Patrol, is a big man who wears sunglasses and a blue uniform but carries no gun. Over the next three months, his firm will be paid $31,000 by the Encinitas Sanitary District to put the word out to scores of Guatemalans seeking political asylum that their presence will no longer be tolerated on the property.

On Wednesday, however, Canales didn’t have much to say. There were few migrants on the property, leaving Canales to chase three curious onlookers from the site, referring their questions to the Encinitas city manager’s office.

“He’s there as a security guard,” explained Gloria Carranza, the city’s transient issues coordinator, “not to answer to reporters.”

For city officials, Canales is part of the most recent attempt at a solution to the two-year buildup of trash and fecal matter on the property they say poses a public health hazard. The constant presence of migrants has also angered the local business community, which claims to have lost millions of dollars in trade.

The Guatemalan camp has become a major test for this North County coastal city in its efforts to control the influx of migrant laborers from Mexico and Central America. Their hastily constructed camps stand in stark contrast--and often within several hundred feet of--upscale housing tracts and condominium complexes.

Despite $25,000 in city funds recently spent to conduct a sometimes daily cleanup of the area--during which migrants’ belongings were often thrown away after they left the area for the day--the workers have persisted in rebuilding their makeshift hooches among the 18 acres of eucalyptus, bamboo and thick brush, officials say.

So last month, in a controversial 3-2 decision, the sanitary district voted to hire security guards to chase laborers from the property before they even have a chance to spread out their belongings. Canales will meet with City Manager Warren Shafer next week to decide whether to cut patrols back to 16 hours a day, officials said.

“There are opposing viewpoints to this plan--even on the board,” Carranza said. “We’re not really addressing the question of where these people are going to go.

“With all the political strife there, we can be assured, however, that these Guatemalans aren’t going back home. Let’s wait and see if this is the solution. I mean, everything else we’ve tried here hasn’t worked.”

By 8 a.m., two hours after Canales showed up at the site, more than a dozen men were soliciting work along Encinitas Boulevard in front of the market, seemingly oblivious of his prowling of the nearby campsites.

City officials acknowledge that the men can legally solicit day labor on the street, and aren’t affected by Canales’ patrols during daylight. The first true test for the security guards, they say, will come when migrants return to the camp after nightfall.

Meanwhile, the local business community’s reaction to the new security presence was mixed.

Dennis Fritz, an assistant manager at a gas station and mini-mart next to the grocery store complex, said recent city efforts to discourage workers have cut down on the number of Guatemalans who normally gather outside each morning.

“An average morning, we’ll get 20 or 30 who come in to buy coffee and breakfast rolls, but I’ve only seen two or three today,” he said. “These people don’t bother me, what bothers me is the government’s harsh treatment of them.

“Instead of shooting rockets to the moon, we ought to be taking care of problems like this right here on the ground. I’ve seen whole families--men, women and children--crawl out of that camp, even in the pouring rain.

“We should be providing some place for them to live, with proper toilet facilities, not running them out like animals.”

Victoria McGawley has a different fix on the situation. The owner of a nearby health food store says her female customers are afraid to ride their bicycles there because of cat-calling by the migrants.

Just last summer, she said, hundreds of men would gather in back of the complex on weekends to drink and play cards. One migrant was stabbed to death in a fight over money, she said. On other occasions, she added, women customers have been harassed by the workers at a nearby laundromat.

For McGawley, it’s all bad for business.

“Being a small businesswoman, I’m concerned about self-preservation,” said McGawley, who has chased migrants from the front of her shop. “I’m more sympathetic to these people than the others here. But, if it takes a security presence to move them on their way, I’m all for it.”

Dan Elias, who owns a house overlooking the city’s property, said he once walked to his job as a barber in the shopping center complex. But no more, not after the Guatemalans took over, he said.

“I’ve seen it go from a pristine area that was a natural place for kids to play to become nothing but a dump,” he said. “I built a back porch to overlook the area, but now all I see are people urinating. That’s the reality we have to deal with.”

Elias and other business operators recently put pressure on the Sanitary District to move the migrants from the property. “Our culture is designed for a certain way of life,’ he said.

“We better ourselves, move into regular houses and pay taxes. This living in squalor isn’t what we’re about in this country. These people have become a visual problem we have just got to do something about.”

Some Encinitas Boulevard businessmen have complained that the city’s crackdown at Big Bear will just move the migrant problem down the road--possibly into their back yards.

Larry Mabee, president of Big Bear markets in San Diego, wasn’t buying the criticism.

“I’ve spent one heck of a lot of money trying to find a solution to this problem,” he said. “If these people want to put their head in the sand and try to blame one merchant, then let them.

“It’s society’s problem, but no one wants to do anything about it. Well, we’ve suffered hard-cash dollar losses. Until we find the final solution, what more can we do but move them down the road?”

On Wednesday morning, Raul Tomas stood in the Big Bear parking lot and admitted that he has mixed feelings about the city’s recent get-tough tactics with the migrant workers.

For the past 18 months, the 26-year-old Guatemala native has worked as a security guard for the grocery store, using his native tongue to try to persuade the laborers to stop bothering customers.

In the past, he has been forced to call sheriff’s deputies to assist him with uncooperative workers. His efforts have been largely successful. But now, he says, the city is suddenly upping the ante.

“Sometimes, when I talk to them, my countrymen say, ‘Hey, you’re from our country. You’re just like us, only you’ve got a uniform.’ Sometimes they only listen to the Americans, the sheriff’s men.

“Now they’ll get their chance (to listen) because there’ll be lots of Americans in uniforms here. I can’t do anything more for my countrymen.”