Laguna Backs Day Labor Hiring Law : Ordinance: Plan would punish only employers who find workers outside designated area. Council orders city attorney to study legality before it returns for final approval.

After weeks of grappling with how to control where day laborers congregate, the City Council has endorsed a law that would hold prospective employers liable if they hire workers anywhere except at a designated hiring lot.

Since the law would punish employers while holding workers blameless, the council Tuesday night instructed the city attorney to explore the legality of the ordinance before it returns for final approval next month.

Two weeks ago, the council rejected a tougher law that would have made both laborers and employers vulnerable to citations.

Robin Toma, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California, which has legally challenged other laws restricting dayworkers, said Wednesday that his organization will also examine Laguna Beach’s ordinance.

“It’s encouraging that city governments like Laguna Beach are sensitive to the fact that solicitation of work by day laborers is really ‘speech for survival’ and should be protected,” Toma said. “However, to the degree they plan to in any way criminalize conditions related to that act, whether on the part of day laborers or employers, that concerns us.”

If the ordinance wins final approval, contractors, gardeners and others who drive into Laguna Beach and pick up workers outside of the designated hiring lot would be liable for fines and penalties of up to $1,000 and/or six months in jail.

Police have said enforcement of such a law will be difficult, particularly when only the employer can be cited.

The council has flip-flopped on this issue in recent weeks. Last month, the council voted 3 to 2 to give initial approval to a tougher ordinance, with council members Ann Christoph, Wayne L. Peterson and Kathleen Blackburn favoring the proposal.

But two weeks later, when the ordinance returned for final approval, Christoph proposed a law under which only prospective employers would be cited for hiring day laborers outside the designated hiring lot, in the 12000 block of Laguna Canyon Road. When only she and Blackburn voted for that alternate ordinance, the council decided to create a task force to find another solution.

Since then, however, Peterson has decided that Cristoph’s alternate law was better than no law, so he asked that the ordinance be brought back to the council for another vote.

“This at least gives (the police) something to enforce,” said Peterson, who joined Christoph and Blackburn in giving preliminary approval to the ordinance Tuesday night.

Mayor Lida Lenney voted against the measure, saying that her son is a contractor and that she would not want him or others like him to have to pay a fine they might not be able to afford. Lenney said she was also concerned about whether police will be able to enforce the law and whether it would prompt lawsuits against the city.

“The truth of the matter is, I just think it’s not a human way to solve this type of problem,” Lenney said.

Councilman Robert F. Gentry, who voted against both ordinances at previous meetings, was out of town Tuesday.

Police say 75 to 100 day laborers gather along the streets of Laguna Beach each day to seek jobs. Many of them take buses into Laguna to seek work.

Residents have complained that the workers intimidate residents by congregating near homes and businesses, particularly near North Coast Highway and Viejo Street. Since there are no toilet facilities available except at the hiring lot on Laguna Canyon Road, residents say the workers who gather elsewhere urinate and defecate outdoors.