Soffer Loses Appeal on Storage of Vehicles

Sid Soffer, a local resident well known for his numerous battles with City Hall, lost another legal battle Wednesday when the state Court of Appeal ruled that five vehicles stored on Soffer’s property were a public nuisance.

Among the issues raised in Soffer’s appeal of a lower court ruling was whether the city had the legal power to declare the storage of the vehicles a nuisance.

Soffer began storing vehicles at his Costa Mesa home in 1975. By 1989, there were eight vehicles stored on his property. The vehicles were in various states of disrepair, including deflated tires, missing batteries and faulty engines.

The city declared the vehicles a public nuisance in 1990 and pursued legal action in an effort to get Soffer to clean up the cars.

In 1991, an Orange County Superior Court judge declared five of the vehicles a public nuisance and ordered Soffer to remove them within 10 days. Soffer appealed that decision.

Wednesday’s judgment is not the first legal battle this year that the controversial Soffer has lost.

Last May, Soffer was sentenced to 30 days in jail in a dispute with Costa Mesa officials over his rental property. He was arrested and taken into custody for failing to obtain the proper building permits for the property.

That battle began in 1990 when he was convicted of seven counts of misdemeanor code violations.