Thousand Oaks Announces Curfew Crackdown

As juvenile crime and gang skirmishes increase in Thousand Oaks, sheriff’s officials said Wednesday they plan to crack down on teen-age curfew violators to restore late-night calm.

Ventura County sheriff’s deputies in Thousand Oaks decided to start handing out more curfew citations after Oxnard police stepped up their own curfew enforcement, sheriff’s officials said.

“Hopefully, it’s going to get the kids off the street,” said Sgt. Michael de Los Santos, the sheriff’s youth officer in Thousand Oaks. “And if we’re dealing with gang members or people that are on probation, it’s going to be one other violation of their probation we can use.”

Sheriff’s officials have been making plans for the crackdown for several weeks, he said, but the announcement came just as City Council members and Thousand Oaks residents began pressing for more curfew enforcement.

City Council members Frank Schillo and Alex Fiore on Tuesday asked Sheriff’s Cmdr. Kathy Kemp--the city’s chief of police--to report to the council on how her deputies are enforcing the city curfew ordinance that targets teen-age loiterers.

Residents at the city’s first Crime Symposium on Saturday also recommended that police cite more teen-agers for violating curfew.

“If we strengthen it or urge that it be used regularly, that can help get the bad guys off the street,” Schillo said Wednesday.

The Thousand Oaks curfew ordinance prohibits anyone younger than age 18 from being on the streets between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. unless accompanied by an adult. It is a status offense.

Juvenile probation authorities usually write warning letters to parents of first-time offenders. Second- and third-time offenders often are ordered to do community service work or pay a fine by making a $25 donation to the charity of their choice, said Julie Hedrick, a senior deputy probation officer with the county Corrections Services Agency.

And in Juvenile Court, authorities can stack a curfew violation atop other crimes in asking for stiffer punishment in cases of probation violations, she said.

But Thousand Oaks deputies often merely warn young nighthawks about the law and order them off the street without issuing citations, Kemp said. In 1993, deputies issued 149 curfew citations to Thousand Oaks youths, and so far this year have issued 34, she said.

“If they’ve got a legitimate purpose to be out, we prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt,” Kemp said. “A lot of times, we may . . . do it informally and say, ‘All right, we want everybody to go home,’ and then if we see them still wandering around later we’ll cite them.”

In coming nights, however, deputies might run curfew sweeps, warning every teen-ager spotted on the streets after 10 p.m. and ticketing stragglers, she said. Sheriff’s officials have not yet decided when the crackdown will go into effect.

“Most of the problem is in the upcoming season--summer,” Kemp said. Teen-agers often just hang out at restaurants and other late-night businesses, keeping some legitimate customers away, she said.

De Los Santos said youths under age 18 cause more than half the nighttime street disturbance complaints that deputies answer from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. on weekend nights in Thousand Oaks.

Any such disturbance “could take two units out of service for 15 to 20 minutes,” and slows response time for emergency calls, De Los Santos said.

When deputies cite youths for violating the curfew, they sometimes must drive the offender back to the East Valley Sheriff’s Station and call their parents, which takes even more time, he said.

“We don’t do a lot of that because we realize how time-consuming it is,” Del Los Santos said. “That’s why they end up getting warned a lot.”

Councilman Alex Fiore said tightening curfew enforcement “may have some merit.”