VivirLatino

Officials of the city of Baldwin Park, California are considering a new law that would ban day laborers from using city parking lots to find work. The ordinance would also ban street vendors from the same parking lots. The new law would enforce that the lots be used only for parking and accessing buildings. while it seems benign enough, the fact is that this is the second time to city is trying to deal with the day laborers, who are mostly, Latino.

Claims that laborers were harassing customers near the Home Depot on Puente Avenue prompted an approval in June of an ordinance that barred laborers from soliciting employers in parking lots and on sidewalks unless they left a 3-foot buffer for pedestrians.
The law was in effect for 11 days before a judge stopped it from being enforced. The ban was repealed in August as part of a settlement with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, which sued the city citing the law’s unconstitutionality.

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