65-Year-Old Woman Takes Her Weeklong Jail Stint in Stride

A 65-year-old grandmother, cited for failing to clean up her blighted yard, was upbeat Saturday despite having to spend a week in jail last month after ignoring an order to appear in court.

Spurlyn Reynolds had a few negative comments about jail food but wore the regulation blue jumpsuit without complaint and said she mingled well with the other inmates.

“I was called Grandma in jail. It was kind of neat,” said Reynolds, who was arrested by Orange County marshals on July 11. “I was older than anyone else who had been arrested. You name it, they had done it. But, I didn’t ask any questions and I didn’t judge them.”

Reynolds, who has lived on her home on Encinitas Street for 33 years, said the large pile of asphalt and weeds in her yard, which violated the city’s anti-blight ordinance, have been removed since she returned home on July 18.

The yard had been declared a public nuisance by the city’s code enforcement department and Reynolds was charged with an infraction and ordered to appear in court. When she did not show up, a bench warrant was issued for her arrest, police said Saturday.

Reynolds said she was still in her nightgown when police arrived, put her in handcuffs and placed her in the van that took her to jail.

“They’re lucky I was in my nightgown,” she said. “Normally I’m in the altogether.”

Reynolds didn’t ask any of her three children or two grandchildren to help her post $10,000 bail and as a result, spent a week behind bars, first at Orange County Jail then the James A. Musick Branch Jail, a minimum-security facility in Irvine.

“I did not [dislike] the time in jail,” Reynolds said, chuckling. “I took it as it was dealt to me. I figured this was no time to get aggravated. Whatever the program was, I followed it.”

La Habra Police Lt. Jerry Kline said Saturday that Reynolds had not cooperated with numerous attempts by the city to solve the problem with her yard.

“We’ve been working with her since 1995 attempting to get her to clean up her yard,” Kline said. “We even offered to go over to then property with a group of volunteers to clean up her property and she refused.”

Reynolds is next scheduled to appear in court on Aug. 8. But it is not clear whether she has learned her lesson.

“I may go,” she said, “if I remember to.”