PLACENTIA : Council to Consider Limiting Park Hours
The City Council tonight will consider a Police Department request to limit hours at a tiny patch of parkland that has fast become the site of increased crime and gang activity.
Police Chief Manuel E. Ortega has asked the council to impose a dusk closing each evening at La Placita Park, on La Jolla Street in the city’s La Jolla neighborhood. Under Ortega’s proposal, the park would be shut from dusk to 5:30 a.m. Currently, city parks close at 10:30 p.m.
Less than half an acre, La Placita is little more than a grassy knoll with a gazebo. But it has become a gathering spot for local gangs, who commit assaults, leave graffiti and engage in vandalism, as well as scare off residents of the area, police said.
Since January, there have been 22 incidents at the park, resulting in four arrests. Last summer, a man was killed near the park when shots were fired from a nearby overpass.
James Soto, the city’s director of recreation and human services, said that a street light in the park is frequently shot at and broken.
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