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 The ban was repealed in August as part of a settlement with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, which sued the city citing the law’s unconstitutionality.

It looks like the new proposal was made to look more general so that officials wouldn’t be called racists and accused of attacking the Constitutional rights of workers. There are a few holes in the new plan, including the fact that if laborers or street vendors were soliciting business while sitting in their car or standing in one of these pedestrian areas, they would not be in violation.

The people who are complaining say that the crowds of men (men of color please note) frighten them. I wonder if the same push would be there if there were crowds of say Irish immigrants seeking work?

The ordinance is expected to go before the council on Nov. 28 for introduction. If a new law were passed, it would likely take effect in January. But many of the laborers said they would continue to seek work in the same way.

Via / SGV Tribune