Loitering Dayworkers Targeted by Proposal

An ordinance aimed at preventing dayworkers from gathering at Los Alisos Boulevard and Jeronimo Road will be considered by the City Council on Monday.

The proposal was written in response to complaints from merchants about groups of men making off-color comments to women and urinating in public.

Lt. Kim Markusson, head of police services for Mission Viejo, said that the Montessori school nearby appeared to have been most disrupted by the situation.

That campus is “particularly sensitive because they congregate right outside the school,” Markusson said. “Women have to run the gantlet in the mornings right past these guys.”

School officials could not be reached for comment Friday.

With a lumberyard and other materials suppliers in the vicinity, dayworkers have been coming to the intersection for years to look for jobs.

Officials in Lake Forest, which is on the north side of Los Alisos, passed an ordinance in 1993 intended to prevent the hiring of dayworkers there.

Patterned after the Lake Forest law, Mission Viejo’s ordinance would prohibit soliciting employees, asking for money or doing business from a car.

The council will meet at 7 p.m. at City Hall, 25909 Pala.

Information: (714) 470-3000.