Last Call? : Recreation: Citing litter, nuisances and violence, west Ventura residents want the city to ban alcohol at their neighborhood parks.

Fed up with people who spend their days drinking in the neighborhood, a group of west Ventura residents is pushing a plan to ban alcohol from their community parks.

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Boosted by the Westside Community Council and the Ventura County Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs, the coalition has launched a letter-writing campaign to city officials and will take its proposal to the City Council.

“There’s a lot of things that happen when drinking is going on,” said Roberta Payan, who is helping coordinate the effort.

“There’s litter. There’s broken glass in our sandlot every single day. There’s homeless people,” she said. “It’s not conducive to a park, where you have youth activities going on.”

Under city law, it is legal to drink in any park that has no signs prohibiting alcohol. Of the two dozen city parks in Ventura, only a handful have banned the use of alcohol.

“All of the parks that have been posted are in the downtown area--Surfers Point, Plaza Park, the pier,” said Bill Byerts, the city parks manager. “We just haven’t had the problem.”

But others disagree. They say that people crowd Westpark and Harry A. Lyon parks, drinking cases of beer and leaving their trash behind.

“When they’re drinking, they get in fights, arguments, and it can lead to other problems,” Ramona Street resident Linda Sickels said. “A lot of the problems are exaggerated because of the drinking.”

Ned Barron, who has spent most of his life on Ventura Avenue, said too many people sit in the two parks drinking beer and hard liquor.

“I’m all for banning it,” said Barron, who volunteers at the Westside police storefront.

“Any time day or night, you’ll see these people drinking,” Barron said. “Every time you see these people over there, you can be assured there will be some fights. That’s what alcohol does.”

Police officials say they will be happy to enforce the alcohol ban at the two parks if the City Council agrees. Officers now respond to the parks on a complaint-only basis.

“If these interest groups can come forward and sway the council, then we’ll begin enforcing it,” Sgt. Bob Velez said. “But if it’s not posted, it’s not enforced.”

Mark Summa, an assistant with the county drug abuse prevention program, said his office helped fund a survey that found that more than one-quarter of the city’s 81 liquor outlets are in the Ventura Avenue neighborhood.

“There are many correlations between the availability of alcohol and alcohol-related problems,” he said. “The more alcohol outlets you have in a community, the more problems you’re going to have.”

Kenneth Ready, 13, said he supports the proposed ban. Too often, he said, he has to clean up broken glass from the tennis courts at Harry A. Lyon Park before he plays. “I don’t like it,” he said.

Brett Dominguez, 13, also said the leftovers tend to drive away potential visitors.

“I think it’s gross,” the De Anza Middle School graduate said. “They leave all their trash around and it makes it look like a dump.”

But some Avenue residents say there is no need to ban beer from the parks. Instead, they suggest, police should concentrate on weeding out the derelicts and troublemakers.

The proposal “is understandable because there are a lot of kids around the playground,” said Caesar Huerta, 19. “But they shouldn’t ban it from the baseball park. A lot of people want to drink while they play ball.”

Huerta’s friend, Sal Flores, said he doubted the ban would have any effect.

“People will just get more tickets, but it won’t help anything,” Flores said. “People have been drinking here for years.”

Mayor Tom Buford said he would consider supporting the ban, expected before the council later this summer, if residents prove there is a problem.

“I voted against banning alcohol on the pier because I didn’t really feel that problems had been demonstrated,” he said. “But we’re going to take a serious look at this.”