The City of Redondo Beach’s day laborer petition denied
Jorge Rodriguez, Jose Esculera and Juan Carlos wait for work at the 7-Eleven on Artesia and Felton on Wednesday morning. Photo
Day laborers may now legally solicit work from passing vehicles in Redondo Beach after the U.S. Supreme Court this week denied a petition from the City of Redondo Beach to hear arguments for a day laborer ban.
City Attorney Mike Webb said the court’s decision was not unexpected.
“It’s disappointing but not surprising given the amount of petitions the Supreme Court gets,” Webb said.
The city has been trying to ban day laborers from gathering on street corners while looking for work, citing a need to address neighborhood safety hazards. Day laborer supporters have attacked the city’s efforts as an attack on free speech. The legal battle has been underway for more than seven years after a U.S. District court declared the city’s ban unconstitutional. A three-judge panel from U.S. Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit in 2010 overturned the lower court, but the appellate court took the rare step of a 11-judge “en banc” hearing to reconsider the decision. In September, the panel sided overwhelmingly with the day laborers.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday announced it would not review the decision.
“We are pleased the court declined to review the case,” said Thomas A. Saenz, attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) in Los Angeles. “The Ninth Circuit got it right — the ordinance is an unconstitutional abridgment of free speech…This is the final word, and the final word in the Ninth Circuit is 9 out of 11 [justices] said it is unconstitutional; cities need to find other needs to address, any other concerns that they have.”
The “anti-solicitation” ordinance was based word-for-word on a similar ordinance passed by the city of Phoenix and upheld by the Ninth Circuit. It had been in effect in Redondo Beach for almost 25 years but was rarely enforced. In 2004, the city took action, running undercover stings that resulted in the arrests of 69 day-laborers. The Ninth Circuit’s majority decision said that the ordinance was so broad that it could be applied to a wide array of activities and thereby threatened to stifle free speech. But its chief justice strongly protested the ruling, arguing that a city should have a right to designate sidewalks for walking instead of loitering.
“There is no evidence that the city has ever enforced, threatened to enforce or dreamt of enforcing the ordinance against sidewalk food vendors, tyke lemonade moguls, Girl Scout cookie peddlers, high school car washers, disaster relief solicitors or middle-aged men cruising neighborhoods looking to pick up teenage girls from their front yards,” Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote in a strongly worded dissent that was apparently intended as a signal to the Supreme Court to consider the case.
Webb said the city has simply tried to address traffic-safety and quality-of-life issues on behalf of its residents.
“There are very real traffic concerns,” Webb said. “They congregate by the heaviest traveled intersections…[The ordinance’s enforcement] was in response to legitimate quality of life concerns from citizens. Where there is a high volume of people in an area they pee, graffiti, and people feel unsafe.”
“I was certainly disappointed in the state’s decision not to hear the case,” said Roderick Walston, an attorney from Best Best & Krieger LLP who represented the city. “They should have heard the case. The issue itself is very important. The City of Redondo Beach has a strong interest that the people in Ninth Circuit recognize in regulating day laborers in order to prevent them from creating traffic problems in the streets of Redondo Beach. I felt the ordinance was in compliance with First Amendment rights.”
Community members have suggested the possibility of setting aside a spot where day laborers could congregate in order to mitigate safety issues. Webb said the city will consider such options.
“The mayor and council will be looking at all available options,” he said. “Perhaps starting day labor centers, but that would come at a cost.”
Saenz thinks hiring sites are a good idea.
“It’s always a good approach if it’s a well-run, accessible program that provides additional services to workers,” he said. “However, it doesn’t change the First Amendment and [the city] cannot restrict workers rights to solicit from the side walk. They are in Redondo Beach and other cities because they get hired there.”
But the lawyer reiterated that whatever the solution the city seeks, it will not involve any ordinance like the one the city has been defending for the past seven years.
“Redondo Beach is out of options,” said Saenz. “Their law, which they have been unable to enforce, is effectively annulled…Hopefully other cities, many of which have similar ordinances, will understand the clear indications from the Ninth Circuit and move to change and repeal their ordinances.” ER