Neighborhood Parking Ban Upheld

City officials may ban all on-street parking in an entire neighborhood, an appellate court has ruled.

Anaheim police and city officials said the parking ban in the Leatrice-Wakefield neighborhood was needed to reduce chronic drug dealing and gang activity.

But a group of street vendors challenged the ban, contending that in effect they had been prevented from doing business in the area, located north of Orangewood Avenue and east of Haster Street.

Four residents joined in the suit, saying apartment dwellers were being forced to park blocks from their homes, which they described as an inconvenience and a danger at night.

In a recent 3-0 decision, the California 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana said the parking ban is legal under state codes that grant cities broad power to regulate parking.

The ruling “is important because it gives the City Council a broader latitude to exercise some creative measures to make streets safer in Anaheim,” Deputy City Atty. Mark S. Gordon said Tuesday.

The ban, which went into full effect in August 1995, prohibits parking along any of the neighborhood’s five streets, 24 hours a day. Residents must park in assigned garages and spaces.

The ban, the first of its type in Anaheim, initially eliminated 380 public parking spaces. But about 280 spaces were regained by pouring concrete in some grassy courtyard areas to create more parking areas.

Before the ban, police said drug dealers and gang members used their cars as a base of operation. In the months after the ban, the area went from No. 1 to No. 24 among 90 city districts ranked in order of most crimes.