LABORERS: Merchants Demand Action as Crowd on Corner Grows : Day Laborers Becoming a Nightmare for Merchants

He is 50 years old, bone-tired and looking for some rest. But every day, Jesus Lopez wakes up well before dawn and stumbles out of the tiny room he shares with three other men to join the crowd on a downtown street corner, waiting for piecemeal work.

Making their way in the predawn half-light, the Latino men crowd around the parking lot of the Tipsy Fox market on the corner of High Street and Spring Road in Moorpark.

Like Lopez, they all want the same thing--a day’s work.

Inside the store, manager Mike Abdul--himself an immigrant in his 50s--prepares for another day of picking up the spent cigarette packs, the empty coffee cups and other detritus left by the day laborers.

By midday, he will be trying to shoo away the phalanx of men that pack the entry to his store. Or he might start spraying down the back wall of the building where the men sometimes relieve themselves.

For more than 10 years, this little drama has played itself out daily on the corner in Moorpark’s rustic downtown.

As the number of men looking for work has increased, so has the level of frustration and animosity among local business owners.

“I don’t have anything against anyone--I’m an immigrant too--but I’ve got to do my business,” Abdul said with frustration.

He said he was tired of talking about the day laborers. He said he was afraid he would say something that would get him in trouble or make him look like a racist.

For years, Abdul has been haranguing City Hall to do something about it.

“OK, the day laborer, we cannot forget they contribute to society, sure,” Abdul said. “Fine if they don’t bother nobody, but they scaring people away from my store. Here they’re hurting my business.”

Three years ago, the city tried to move the men to a designated spot in front of City Hall. But within a few months they were back on the corner.

“We moved, but the men with the jobs didn’t,” Lopez said, explaining why the new location didn’t work.

As the years have passed, the numbers in front of Abdul’s market have swelled from about a dozen or so to more than 50. And on weekends, the crowd can number as many as 200, said Ed Jones, who manages the tire shop next to Abdul’s store.

“That poor guy [Abdul] has been trying to deal with this for years,” Jones said.

When the store owners complain about the problem, they are tagged as racists, he said.

“Everybody’s trying to ride that minority bus,” Jones said. “That’s not what this is about. “

But race and politics inevitably weave themselves into any debate on the subject.

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The workers on the corner--many of them in the country illegally and without proper work papers--feel vulnerable.

It is enough, they say, to worry about finding a job. They don’t want to deal with anything else.

During one seven-day period when Lopez came down to stand in front of the market, he landed only one day’s work.

“We just want to work,” he said. “We don’t want anything else. . . .Look at me--I’m old, but they know that if they give me work I’ll work like a burro.”

When a truck or car pulls up, young and old alike rush to the windows, asking in the few English phrases some of them know:

“How many men do you need?”

“What kind of work?”

They all hope they will be the ones that the driver points to and says, “You. Get in.”

And perhaps if they are picked, they can take home $50 for a day’s work of digging ditches, moving furniture or picking weeds.

Whatever needs to be done, we’ll do it,” said Lopez, who hopes that he can line up two weeks of steady work so he can save enough money to return to Mexico.

On a recent weekday, a truck pulls up--one of just four that day--and Lopez, like all the others, makes a run for the driver’s side.

“You have to be smart and you have to be fast,” said 24-year-old Jose Miguez, a legal immigrant and one of the few men on the corner who speaks English.

“They look for a young person. They want to make sure that you’re strong enough and you’re going to work,” Miguez said.

Like most of the men on the corner, Miguez knows that the local business owners don’t want them there.

There have been complaints about petty theft from the store, and complaints from customers who say they are intimidated when the large group of men inevitably mobs their cars when they drive into the parking lot.

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Miguez doesn’t have a lot of sympathy for those complaints, though.

He said that while a few men may cause problems, it is wrong to assume everyone is like that.

As for hurting Abdul’s business, Miguez said the Tipsy Fox and the neighboring doughnut shop actually make money off the workers by selling them coffee, doughnuts, cigarettes, beer and lottery tickets.

Miguez said he knows that because many of the men on the corner are in this country illegally, they are becoming pariahs.

“But think about it,” he says. “These guys can make $50 in a day--more money than they could make in a week in Mexico--doing stuff that most people here don’t want to do. They’re not hurting anyone.

“The situation in Mexico is so bad they’re having a hard time feeding their families,” Miguez said. “What would you do?”

What to do about the day laborers is a question the Moorpark City Council plans to discuss on Wednesday. Ideas ranging from cracking down on illegal immigrants to providing an alternative site complete with bathrooms, a telephone and a job board have been thrown out for discussion.

But city officials are being cautious, said Mayor Paul Lawrason, and looking at how other cities in Southern California have dealt with the issue. The city of Agoura Hills passed an ordinance five years ago to prevent day laborers from gathering on public streets.

The ordinance was challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union. An appeals court sided with the city and upheld the ordinance, but the law has reportedly done little to prevent day laborers from gathering in Agoura, Lawrason said.

“We want to avoid those kinds of problems, but we have to do something,” he said.

The city is looking into hiring a consultant who has dealt with the issue, Lawrason said.

Councilman Bernardo Perez said the reason the city has failed to solve the problem is that the City Council has been unwilling to commit resources.

“The council basically said that they don’t want to spend a dime on this,” Perez said.

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Pointing out that it is not illegal for the men to congregate on the corner, he said the city should be looking for constructive solutions.

One idea is to use a vacant, city-owned lot next to the railroad tracks as a new pickup site, where the city could also put up portable toilets.

“But the only way we’re going to solve this is if the employers that are hiring these guys agree to use the alternative site,” he said.

Perez added that he feels some of the complaints are exaggerated, but fellow Councilman John Wozniak disagrees.

“This is a legitimate beef,” Wozniak said. “I go to the doughnut shop before work and I end up parking in the tire shop because I don’t want to get mobbed and asked if I have work. And I know women that just won’t go there.”

Florist Kathee Amador, who works across the street, says the women who work with her refuse to go to the store or walk near the area.

“The wolf-whistles and 100 pairs of eyes following you, it just gives you the feeling that you’re not safe,” Amador said. “I know those guys aren’t going to hurt anybody, but what about the people who aren’t from here? Is that the kind of thing you want to happen when people come downtown?”

She and many downtown merchants say they will attend the Town Hall meeting Wednesday.

“We should have some rights when they start interfering with our business,” Amador said. “Something needs to be done.”

Times staff photographer Carlos Chavez contributed to this story.

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