Court Upholds Santa Ana Camping Ban : Lawsuit: Opponents argued that ordinance makes homelessness a crime. Other cities with similar laws watched case closely.

A Superior Court judge on Thursday upheld a Santa Ana law that bans camping on public property, dealing a major blow to civil rights advocates who argued that the measure is unfairly enforced and effectively makes being homeless a crime.

In a lawsuit watched carefully by other cities, Judge James L. Smith rejected the plaintiffs’ main contentions that the camping prohibition is cruel and unusual punishment and infringes on the right of homeless people to travel.

Smith said that, although the ordinance may primarily affect the city’s homeless people “by design or coincidence,” most of the objections to the law were “without merit.”

The judge, however, threw out one clause that made it a crime to “live temporarily in a camp facility or outdoors.” He ruled that it could be so broadly interpreted as to deny someone the “constitutional right to exist, breathe and take up space” on public property.

The case has been closely monitored throughout the county, but especially by the cities of Fullerton and Orange, which have similar ordinances, Santa Ana City Atty. Edward J. Cooper said. Both cities sent representatives to court Thursday to hear the judge’s decision.

“The ordinance is still effective. It’s a great victory for the city,” Cooper said, vowing that enforcement of the law will continue unimpaired. “The judge is saying that this is a legitimate exercise of police power. He’s not looking at the issue of whether (those camping on public property) are homeless or not homeless.”

Cooper said the stricken section will not affect the rest of the ban, which prohibits the use of camping equipment such as sleeping bags and blankets on public property.

Smith’s decision is a setback for a case spearheaded by the Legal Aid Society of Orange County on behalf of Archie Tobe, Robert Bickel and Richard Petherbridge. Tobe was homeless when the lawsuit began. Bickel is a transient, and Petherbridge joined the action as a taxpayer.

The lawsuit, filed last year, sought to have the Santa Ana ordinance declared unconstitutional. Civil rights advocates view the lawsuit as a test case that could have broad effect on other cities’ efforts to remove the homeless from public property.

At least five other cities in Southern California--Santa Barbara, Santa Monica, Orange, Fullerton and Long Beach--are facing similar lawsuits. Nationally, Reno and Miami have been sued.

“We’re in a situation where city after city closes their doors to the homeless,” said Harry Simon, a Legal Aid attorney. “There are fewer and fewer places where homeless individuals may lawfully be, and for our clients it threatens to make their continued existence in Orange County unlawful.”

Simon and other attorneys for the homeless said they were disappointed by the decision and might appeal. They also suggested that the city might have less leeway to cite people under the ordinance as a result of the voided clause.

As originally written, Simon said, the ordinance prohibited “any activity, at any time for any conduct” on public property. He added, however, that the ordinance “will still allow police to harass homeless individuals” and let the city oust people from parks, public buildings and other municipal facilities.

Attorney Christopher B. Mears, who argued most of the case before Judge Smith on Thursday, called upon city officials to meet with advocates of the poor to find ways to help rather than penalize them.

“We’ve got to stop this cycle of the city of Santa Ana engaging in (discriminatory) enforcement,” Mears said after the court hearing.

The ordinance, which was adopted in August, has been the city’s primary tool in a successful crusade to remove the homeless from the Civic Center. So far, more than 40 people have been cited under the law.

Many residents and city employees credit the measure with cleaning up that area, which at one time included a shantytown of makeshift huts and tents. When the law went into effect last summer, about 275 homeless people were living in the Civic Center.

At several recent City Council meetings, hundreds of protesters including those from Orange County Housing Now! and Shelter for the Homeless have denounced the ordinance as unfair.

They called upon the city to seek more humane ways of dealing with the homeless, such as spending money on low-cost housing that would otherwise be used to finance court battles with lawyers for the homeless.