Redondo Beach day laborer ordinance is ruled unconstitutional

[Borderwatch]

Redondo Beach day laborer ordinance is ruled unconstitutional

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lano...urt-rules.html

Day laborers and their supporters march on Redondo Beach City Hall in 2004

A Redondo Beach effort to crack down on day laborers is an unconstitutional restriction on free speech, a federal appeals court has ruled.

The city's anti-solicitation ordinance, which has been in place for more than two decades, drew attention in 2004 after undercover police officers posing as potential employers arrested nearly 60 day laborers in a period of about four weeks. The National Day Laborer Organizing Network and the Comite de Jornaleros de Redondo Beach sued the city soon after those arrests.

The ordinance, which city officials said was needed to regulate traffic safety at two major intersections, barred standing on a street or highway and soliciting “employment, business or contributions from an occupant of any motor vehicle.”

In its ruling issued Friday, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the ordinance “regulates significantly more speech than is necessary to achieve the City’s purpose of improving traffic safety and traffic flow.”

Calls to the Redondo Beach city attorney’s office for comment were not immediately returned.

Pablo Alvarado of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network said he hoped the ruling would have a broad effect on similar ordinances in other cities.

The workers, he said, “were arrested for soliciting work on public sidewalks and they fought back. As a consequence now they have won the right to be on the sidewalk. Not just for them but for everyone.”