SEAL BEACH : Bad Weather Scatters Trash Can Scavengers

Many of the can and bottle scavengers whose behavior came under fire last summer by some residents have left the city because of the cold and rainy weather.

The number of scavengers, who last September numbered more than a dozen, has shrunk by half as the mostly transient men moved to cities that have services for the homeless or abandoned buildings where they can spend the night, officials said.

“There’s not that much shelter for them here, so many of them have moved on to where there is some,” said Police Sgt. Dean Zanone.

Their dwindling numbers are evident at the recycling machine in front of Seal Beach’s Pavilions supermarket on Pacific Coast Highway, where the scavengers get cash for the cans and bottles they collect in alleys and trash bins during the night.

Last year, some supermarket shoppers complained that a few of the scavengers near the market panhandled too aggressively, were rude and occasionally exposed themselves.

The recycling machine remains a meeting place for scavengers today, but shoppers and police say the situation has improved considerably.

“I feel better about coming here now,” said Joanne Ortiz, 35, of Long Beach, who regularly shops at Pavilions. “No one has asked me for money in a long time. . . . I shop at night, and this makes it more peaceful.”

Part of this new calm is attributed to police action.

Last month, police obtained written permission from the owner of some vacant land on 1st Street to expel the nearly dozen homeless people who had erected a “tent village” on the property, Zanone said.

The homeless people were given seven days to move out and did so without incident, he said.

Police arrested two homeless men late last year after neither responded to previous citations for drinking in public and scavenging, Zanone said. The men were booked into Orange County Jail, which got them “out of the city,” he said.

Under a city ordinance, taking material out of trash receptacles is illegal, though police only cite scavengers when they are caught in the act.

Next month, the Planning Commission is likely to vote on a resolution that calls for the recycling machine to be moved from in front of Pavilions to a more low-profile location in an adjoining shopping center.

Some residents would like the machine moved out of the center altogether. But because state law requires that such machines be placed within 5,000 feet of major supermarkets, officials doubt the city can eliminate it.