COSTA MESA : City Bans Camping to Discourage Vagrants

Following the lead of several other Orange County cities, Costa Mesa has outlawed camping in public parks.

In recent months, the City Council has also cracked down on panhandlers and requested that a local soup kitchen stop serving lunches. Both measures were attempts to stem the flow of vagrants into the city after council members said they had received a number of complaints.

Some who attended Tuesday’s council meeting, however, took a different view.

“What would Mary and Joseph have done in Costa Mesa?” resident Gary Lewis asked. “You would be instructing our police officers to arrest them.”

Councilman Peter F. Buffa countered that many of the homeless people who congregate in the city’s parks belong in jail. “These are hard-core street people who run scams,” he said in support of the no-camping policy, “and I trust the police to enforce it properly.”