Moorpark Proposal Would Restrict Day Laborers

Responding to years of complaints about day laborers crowding a downtown street corner, city officials have drafted a proposed ordinance that would bar the workers from soliciting business from passing drivers.

But the ordinance, scheduled for a City Council vote today, will not do what some local business owners had hoped--remove the men from the parking lot at High and Spring streets where they now gather.

As long as the laborers don’t break any laws while waiting for work, they could continue meeting in front of the Tipsy Fox convenience store and could still accept employment from anyone who wants to hire them, provided those employers park legally nearby and walk to the lot.

Several nearby business owners said Tuesday that the ordinance will do little to help them. Instead, they said, council members should concentrate on finding someplace else for the men to gather while they look for work.

“There isn’t one of us that doesn’t want them to find jobs,” said Kathee Amador, owner of a flower shop across High Street from the Tipsy Fox. “But disrupting these businesses isn’t fair.”

Merchants complain that the men scare off customers by surrounding cars at the intersection’s stop light and asking for work.

Linda Shehorn, manager of Copy Masters on High Street, said she has seen some of the men urinating in public and wonders what she’ll do if her children see the same thing.

“What am I supposed to do, put blinders on my kids?” she said.

Mayor Paul Lawrason said the proposed ordinance, modeled after an Agoura Hills law that has withstood a court challenge, will at least give the city one way to manage the problem.

“I think it’s a tried methodology that we can put in place and see if that helps the situation,” Lawrason said. “It certainly can’t hurt.”

As proposed, the ordinance would make it illegal for anyone standing in a public street or sidewalk to solicit employment, or money, from someone traveling through the area in a vehicle. The ordinance would also bar those inside their vehicles from soliciting employment from people on the street.

Under the ordinance, business owners with parking lots would be able to restrict gatherings on their property but not ban them altogether. Merchants could set aside a portion of a parking lot for use by the laborers and keep them from soliciting elsewhere on the lot.

“It allows the property owner to manage it in some way, but it doesn’t eliminate that activity, because we don’t have that ability,” said Mary Lindley, assistant to Moorpark’s city manager.

City leaders have been trying for years to find another site for the day laborers, but past efforts to move the men have fallen through. For several months in 1993, the city persuaded many of the men to gather at the Moorpark Community Center, but they eventually returned to High Street, believing their chances of finding employment were better there.

Council member Bernardo Perez said the city still wants to find a place where the men can look for jobs without disrupting nearby businesses. The ordinance alone, he said, would not solve the problem.

“It is a step on the road to finding a solution,” he said. “It cannot be the only step or we will not make progress.”*