Garage Sale Limit Given Initial OK : Government: Santa Ana law would permit sales on only four weekends per year. Council hopes to curb illegal businesses.

In an effort to clean up the city’s neighborhoods and crack down on illegal businesses, the City Council on Monday gave preliminary approval to an ordinance allowing garage sales only on the first weekend in March, June, September and December.

The campaign to restrict the sales to four weekends a year grew out of residents’ complaints that such sales were unsightly junk-fests, often covering for small businesses operating regularly out of driveways and parking lots.

“Other things have been tried and they have not worked,” said resident Joe Vielma. “I hope this gives you the kind of control you need to clean up the city.”

Critics of the proposed ordinance, however, have countered that the sales are simply a way to earn a little cash in a tough economy. The sales also provide the only affordable merchandise to Santa Ana’s poorest residents, many of whom don’t have cars to get to the closest swap meet, they said.

“To dictate to people how they can do it, when they can do it, that to me is wrong,” resident Arturo Jacques said Monday. The City Council last month endorsed the idea of allowing sales only on four specified weekends. But Councilman Ted R. Moreno asked that an ordinance that would have allowed sales on two weekends in May and two in October be modified to allow them once every three months instead, to accommodate residents moving from their homes.

The council approved the revised ordinance Monday on first reading, and must vote on it again next month before it becomes law. The council agreed Monday to review the ordinance in six months and decide whether it is working.

If the ordinance receives final approval next month, city staff members said, all residents will receive notices with their water bills.

The sales are a constant occurrence in some Santa Ana neighborhoods, where residents scatter used clothing, appliances, furniture and even tires and television sets across front lawns, driveways and commercial parking lots. Some hold one or more sales a week.

At a council meeting last month, more than half a dozen people spoke in favor of a crackdown, complaining that their neighborhoods increasingly looked like “a Third World country.”

Frequent sales violate existing city law, which allows only two garage sales a year per address. But code enforcement officials, who estimate there are 300 to 500 garage sales on any weekend day, say the law has been difficult to enforce.