GLENDALE : Businesses Call Day Laborers a Nuisance

Crowds of day laborers that congregate outside the Home Depot store have caused businesses along the San Fernando Road corridor to lose customers, store owners said Monday.

Seven days a week, as many as 125 day laborers jam onto sidewalks, lounge under private landscaping, urinate into bushes and throw their trash onto private property, business representatives said.

Managers of a headset distribution company, a roller rink and a photography studio said they are fed up with laborers who whistle at female customers and run out into the street to solicit work, causing safety hazards.

“Some people feel intimidated and uncomfortable. I know I do,” said Dominic Cangelosi, owner of the Moonlight Rollerway.

Cangelosi said that life in the southeastern part of Glendale around the 44-year-old rink was quiet until Home Depot opened a year ago. Now, he said, laborers urinate in his bushes and food trucks block the entrance to the rink’s parking lot.

Both business owners and city officials expressed frustration with the problem, saying laborers have a right to seek employment, but must not interfere with other business activities.

“On one hand, you want to encourage people to seek work, but you don’t want that job search to interfere with other people’s rights to use their property,” said Mayor Eileen Givens.

City Manager Dave Ramsay said the problem has dogged the city for years, and officials have yet to find a solution that works. An attempt by the Police Department to pass out flyers to day laborers dictating acceptable behavior failed when new laborers who had not seen the flyers appeared on the scene.

“This is one of the most difficult problems that I have had to face--it’s a problem without a solution,” Ramsay said.

The City Council is scheduled to review complaints received by the city and the Police Department from businesses today at its afternoon council meeting. Givens said the council will take no action on the day-laborer issue, but rather will ask city staff members about possible solutions.

City officials said they are researching last month’s decision by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to criminalize curbside job soliciting in unincorporated areas.

Drafted by board Chairwoman Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, the controversial ordinance goes into effect in July and makes curbside job soliciting a misdemeanor punishable by six months in jail and/or a $1,000 fine.

Immigrant rights groups suggest that cities try to control problems with day laborers by enforcing current laws, rather than creating new laws that will increase the need for police and court resources.

“They need to enforce laws that are currently on the books by arresting a few people for urinating in public or littering--this is very effective in convincing the whole group to behave,” said Robin Toma, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union.