11:47am | In practice it’s largely a moot point — for now, at least — as the police and Occupy Long Beach have arrived at a certain détente: OLB uses no tents, and every night at 10 p.m. any OLBers still in the park step down to the sidewalk to join their fellow group members, resting and/or sleeping beneath blankets and in sleeping bags.
But according to the Long Beach Police Department, technically they do not have to allow OLBers such shelter and respite.
Long Beach Municipal Code Section 9.42.110 says it is “unlawful for any person to camp on public property (including rights-of-way) … between the hours of ten p.m. of one day and five a.m. of the next day, except public property designated for overnight camping.”
As you can see, exactly what this prohibits depends on how define “camping.” But Subsection C does that for us: “For the purposes of this section, the term ‘camp’ shall mean the use of tents or other temporary shelters, or non-city designated cooking facilities.”
What is not defined is “other temporary shelters.” But according to Sgt. Rico Fernandez, a departmental public information officer, police interpret this to include sleeping bags and blankets — an interpretation apparently supported by both the City Attorney’s and City Prosecutor’s Offices.1
While some may not agree with this interpretation, it’s hard to argue that the phrase “other temporary shelters” is not open to interpretation.
The question of sleeping, though, may be a different matter, since nowhere is sleeping mentioned in the pertinent definition of “camp.”
Nonetheless, “Sleeping connotes camping,” says Assistant City Prosecutor Randall Fudge. “Sleeping in a sleeping bag would be camping.”
According to Fernandez, that’s the LBPD’s interpretation, which he says is based on recommendations from the City Attorney’s Office.
But Deputy City Attorney Gary Anderson says that particular recommendation did not come from his office, and he disavows reading LBMC Sec. 9.42.110 as prohibiting sleeping on the sidewalk. “I would not interpret that that way, no,” he says.
On Wednesday night Demos told me that for the most part police are leaving OLBers to sleep in peace on the sidewalk overnight in “temporary shelters” like blankets and sleeping bags — a definitive change from the occupation’s first nights.2 So at present this variance of interpretation is a minor issue.
But if the City becomes weary of Occupy Long Beach’s presence on the stretch of Pacific Avenue sidewalk they currently inhabit overnight, these seemingly small legal questions might make all the difference.
1 As of press time the City Prosecutor’s Office had not gotten back to me about whether their interpretation includes blankets.
2 In fact, by 10:45 p.m. Wednesday night I didn’t see a single officer still in the area. Demos does say, though, that some officers choose to wake the protesters once Lincoln Park opens and have them move up into the park itself.