Oxnard Police Accused of Unfair Enforcement of Anti-Loitering Law

Ticketed for loitering after standing two minutes outside an Oxnard pool hall, three friends decided they were not going to just shut up and pay.

So on Thursday, Roberto Sanchez Reyes, Manuel Velazquez Garcia and Macrino Venegas trooped into Ventura County Municipal Court with their attorneys to fight the citations, which carry fines of more than $100.

When the Oxnard city attorney did not show up to press charges, the judge postponed the case until next week, when their arguments against the tickets are to be heard.

“I don’t know why they cited us,” said Sanchez, a resident of Oxnard since 1956, after the hearing. “Maybe it’s because we’re Hispanic.”

Sanchez, who is a U.S. citizen, and his friends are among a growing number of Latino men running afoul of what defense attorneys say is overzealous, and possibly racist, enforcement of a local loitering ordinance by Oxnard police.

Officials with the department say they have enhanced bike patrols downtown in recent months. And merchants near the pool hall complain that out-of-town prostitutes congregate downtown on weekends.

Assistant Public Defender Jean Farley said she researched more than two dozen tickets that two Oxnard bicycle patrolmen issued from their citation books, “and there isn’t anybody in those two books that has a Caucasian surname. They’re all Hispanic.”

Farley has filed a demurrer motion to get the citations against Sanchez, Velazquez and Venegas thrown out on grounds that the way the officers are enforcing Oxnard ordinance 20-13(b) violated the men’s constitutional rights to free assembly and equal protection.

“Although the ordinance may appear to be neutral on its face, it is being applied in a discriminatory manner,” the motion states. “The two Oxnard bicycle patrol officers have been issuing 20-13(b) citations mainly to Mexican nationals in violation of the equal protection clauses of the United States Constitution and the California Constitution.”

Carmen Ramirez, an attorney for Channel Counties Legal Services, said that she has been pressing city officials since July 3 for an explanation of why the men were cited, to no avail.

“It’s our concern that people who are minding their own business are being rousted for no reason,” she said.

Assistant Oxnard Police Chief Tom Cady said Thursday that the City Council approved extra funding to beef up bike patrols through downtown and bolster redevelopment efforts. But he also said the department will look into the charges of discriminatory treatment.

“The population of our city is predominantly Hispanic, so a majority of the people we deal with in the course of business are going to be Hispanic,” he said. “But we would have to certainly take a look at that and see if there are people who are not being treated the same [as others]. We expect our officers to apply the law evenhandedly and fairly.”

Sanchez said a friend dropped him off on June 28 at the Ayutla Billar pool hall on 6th Street in Oxnard, where two friends walked outside to talk to him.

Within two to three minutes, a pair of Oxnard officers on bicycles rolled out of an alley and asked, “What are you guys doing here?”

“We said, ‘We just got here,’ ” Sanchez recalled in Spanish. “And he said, ‘No, that’s not true, you didn’t just get here, because I’ve been watching you.’

“I tried to go inside the pool hall, and they said, ‘You’re not going anywhere, you’re getting a ticket.’ ”

The officer tried to make him sit down on the curb, said Sanchez, who refused because an accident he suffered on his job installing drywall left him with a bad leg.

“I didn’t do it. I said, ‘Why are you doing this at all?’ ” recounted Sanchez. “He said, ‘We’re giving you a ticket because there’s just too many people here.’ He wrote it up and said, ‘Here, sign it,’ and I said, ‘No, I’m not going to sign it.’

“He said, ‘If you don’t sign it, I’m going to arrest you.’ ”

Sanchez signed the citation. Velazquez, 51, signed his, too, though he now says he was surprised and insulted by the citation.

Velazquez, an 18-year Oxnard resident who works as a mechanic, said he worries now that the ticket will interfere with his current work to earn his citizenship papers.

Merchants in the area said 6th Street east of Oxnard Boulevard is quiet most of the time. Pedestrians are to be expected, they say, because the Ventura County Rescue Mission is located at the east end of 6th Street.

The trouble occurs on Friday and Saturday nights, they say, when the prostitutes roll into town.

“The ladies come up here from Los Angeles. It’s too much,” said Micaela de la Torre, 70, whose Mexican restaurant, Dona Mickey’s, is located across the street from the pool hall.

Like the pool hall, Dona Mickey’s is a dry establishment--no alcohol is served.

Patrons at the Capri bar next door to De la Torre’s restaurant agreed that prostitutes add to the weekend commotion.

Miguel Rivera of Oxnard said in the three years he’s been coming to the pool hall, there have been no fights or problems with crime inside or on the street.

“This is a place for guys mostly. Retired guys for the most part,” said Rivera, 39.

The patrons come to shoot some pool or play on the longer carambola tables, have a smoke and drink a soda. “But problems? No problems,” Rivera said.

“These guys are just standing here,” Rivera said. “It’s better than staying home.”

Reed is a Times staff writer and Steepleton is a correspondent.