Council to Address Day Laborer Issue

Every morning, rain or shine, weekday or weekend, a pack of eager men gathers on a street corner in Moorpark hoping to get work.

The day laborers have been cramming the parking lot at the Tipsy Fox every morning for more than five years.

There is nothing illegal in what the workers are doing, but for the owners of the store and a neighboring doughnut shop which sit on the corner of Spring Road and High Street, it’s a bother.

The City Council decided at a meeting Wednesday night to wade into the issue and try to come up with a solution that would accommodate both the day laborers’ right to look for work and the shop owners’ right to do business.

The council will have a meeting on the topic during the first week of May. “I’m interested in seeing what sorts of solutions a focused discussion can bring about,” Councilman Bernardo Perez said.

It is the second time the City Council has tried to wrestle with the contentious issue.

The issue has sometimes boiled over into anger on both sides with the mostly Latino work force shouting racism and the frustrated business owners feeling ignored.

Three years ago, the city worked out a compromise in which the day laborers agreed to gather at City Hall instead of using the mini-market parking lot. That only worked for a short time, because the people who drive by looking for laborers were not using the new site. So the day laborers have returned to the parking lot in front of the Tipsy Fox.