Store Owner Says Day Laborers Scare Away Customers : Moorpark: When the City Council takes up regulation of the would-be workers, it will be treading ground well worn by other communities.

At 6 a.m. seven days a week, about 30 Latinos gather in the parking lot of the Tipsy Fox convenience store at the corner of High Street and Spring Road in Moorpark.

They come looking for a day’s work.

The day laborers stand back from the store, along the grassy borders of the parking lot. Standing close to the street improves their chances of being the first to reach the construction or landscaping employers who pull up looking for workers. But their position also keeps them out of the way of the grocery store’s employees.

Tipsy Fox’s owner, Mike Abdul, recently asked the city to move the men from his parking lot. “They’re good people. I like people who like to work,” Abdul said. But they are scaring away customers, he said.

If the city doesn’t act, “I’m going to get them off my property somehow, some way,” he said.

The City Council plans to take up the issue soon, Mayor Paul Lawrason said. When it does, it will be treading ground that has been well worn in recent months by city councils from Los Angeles to Santa Clarita.

Los Angeles set up two official hiring sites and is working on others, said Niels Frenzen, a spokesman for a Los Angeles immigrants’ rights project. The Santa Clarita City Council requested that federal immigration agents crack down on the illegal immigrants among the day laborers.

Agoura Hills recently passed a law banning laborers from soliciting work in public places, an action that has been challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union and immigrants’ rights groups, ACLU spokesman Robin S. Toma said. The First Amendment allows workers to solicit work in any public place, including parking lots, as long as they don’t interrupt traffic, he said.

The day laborers, who have been gathering at the Tipsy Fox location for five years, stay out of the way of pedestrians and automobiles, said employees of The Donut Shop next door, where the men often purchase coffee and pastries. And, the day workers leave by 10 a.m., whether or not they get work.

But the number of job seekers has increased recently because of the high unemployment rate in the area, said Pat Baldoni of the local office of the state Department of Employment Development. The workers, who are paid about $5 an hour, say they average about a day of work a week when they wait at the site.

Day laborer Carlos Ramirez confirmed Abdul’s claim that the group of workers may hurt business at the Tipsy Fox.

“People who don’t know us are hesitant to stop,” Ramirez said in Spanish. “They won’t even get out of their cars. They just pass by.”

Moorpark officials probably will not try to keep the workers from soliciting jobs, Lawrason said. “The idea is to provide some alternatives for them.”

Agoura Hills set up a telephone referral service to match the laborers with potential employers. But Lawrason, immigrants’ rights advocates and the laborers say this is a poor substitute for the gathering sites.

“Most people don’t have telephones,” laborer Jorge Ruiz said.

Day laborers standing at an outdoor site known to employers is “a system they’ve been using for a long time,” Lawrason said. “That probably is most effective.”

The city may try to move the laborers to a vacant lot across Spring Road from Tipsy Fox, Lawrason said. Construction of a hotel will begin soon on part of the lot, but workers may be able to use the rest of the lot temporarily, he said.

“No one would go for it because it would be temporary,” job-seeker Mario Torres said. “We would be afraid that once we left the parking lot, we would not be able to come back.”

Although creating an official day laborers site is probably the best solution, cities cannot legally force workers to move, said Frenzen of the immigrants’ rights project.

The workers need “some sort of incentive” to move, he said. Portable toilets, umbrellas for shade and trash cans would all make a vacant lot more hospitable, he said.

Lawrason and immigrants’ rights advocates want the laborers to be able to solicit work at an outdoor site. But Baldoni of the state employment department cautions that lack of regulation puts both the workers and their employers at risk of being cheated.

The department is working with Catholic Social Service to set up a center in Moorpark where workers could be placed for day jobs with selected contractors, Baldoni said.

Meanwhile, the laborers continue their daily vigil in the Tipsy Fox parking lot. On a recent morning, a car on Spring Road honked. All heads turned in that direction. But it was a false alarm--just another rush-hour commuter hurrying to a job.