Los Angeles law against sleeping in cars unconstitutional

Next they'll ban sleeping on your horse while riding. No 'nodding' on the trails.

KCFDCapt wrote:
After reading this article, it would seem the laws against sleeping in an RV are unconstitutional. This will affect many cities that prohibit sleeping in a business parking lot.

:h

There are NO laws anywhere against "sleeping in an RV" or in a parking lot; nor did this ordinance attempt to regulate that behavior. It was a poorly written parking law. It will be back in better form.

Every Municipality has the right to regulate parking on both Public and Private properties within its jurisdiction. Clearly written ordinances/rules that regulate how long one can park easily survive such challenges as may be brought against them.

Crowe wrote:
Secondly, WalMart is a private business. If a particular WalMart says no,

I agree with your first point... HOWEVER.

ON this point: Wal*Marts come in different sizes, Neighborhood Wal*marts have Business hours (not 24x7) and small parking lots, Room to park a "Big Rig" may not exist, and thus permission does not.

Wal*mart super centers.... I know of exactly ONE Wal*mart super center where management has requested on overnight parking on it's lot.. The story:
Next door is a used car dealer.. Who seemed to think that part of the Wal*mart was an extension to his show lot.. So he parked some of his inventory there. The manager felt he had no choice but to ban ALL overnight parking, because unlike we RVers.. those cars do NOT move on in the morning.

The part about the law being vague could very well be upheld.

That it discriminates against an economic class, that's a relatively new area to be explored, since the intent of the law was to regulate the behavior of a class of people, for which there is not yet much law providing special protection. If the courts make that breakthrough, it could follow that many other laws and regulations could be challenged that control behavior in order to make the wealthy feel more comfortable about their surroundings. E.G. building codes discriminate against the poor by making housing more costly.

I'm sure it will be rewritten, this time in airtight language, in a month or so. Austin bans vehicles overnighting if they weigh 9000 pounds or more, other places ban people inhabiting their vehicles if it is parked in one place for more than 15-30 minutes.

Santa Barbra handled this much better
They set up permit parking, in designated lots at night, some churches are involved
Limited to certain hours , after normal business hours until before the start of business in the morning
You have a SB address you apply for the permit
You park your vehicle in the lot off street at night, nothing outside, no staying during the day , you leave, goto the beach ..what ever
Come back at night
They are safe at night, the police know it's okay, no Home steading a spot on the street,
No mess allowed or you loose your permit aka permission to park

And they still have lots of area that is. No RV parking period, even for tourist
About 100 Sq blocks of old town, ..down town are off limits for any RV

At the time I felt he was implying that he was under orders to enforce it but did not want to. Was it BS? maybe but either way I was made to move. By the way writing the governors office of Ohio about the situation did not even get me a response from them. I wrote to tell the governor that it would be nice if there was a sign posted so people know the rule. Oh well now I just drive through Ohio as quickly as possible spending as little money as possible in the state. My form of economic revenge

darsben wrote:
This reminds me of the Ohio laws. It is against the law for me to go to sleep in my motor home on any state lands including rest areas as it is considered camping. If I am in a car or tractor trailer that is fine I can sleep undisturbed. Just RV's are prohibited except in designated camping areas. I found this out at 1:30 AM when a State trooper knocked on my door to tell me I had to move as no camping was allowed. The cars and trucks were not disturbed. Trooper was nice and told me it was a state law and he had to enforce it.
I had just pulled in to sleep not cooking, chairs or other camping accoutrements just sleeping as I was tired.

WOW Putting a sleepy driver back on the road!!

That was law enforcement at it's finest.

darsben wrote:
This reminds me of the Ohio laws. It is against the law for me to go to sleep in my motor home on any state lands including rest areas as it is considered camping. If I am in a car or tractor trailer that is fine I can sleep undisturbed. Just RV's are prohibited except in designated camping areas. I found this out at 1:30 AM when a State trooper knocked on my door to tell me I had to move as no camping was allowed. The cars and trucks were not disturbed. Trooper was nice and told me it was a state law and he had to enforce it.
I had just pulled in to sleep not cooking, chairs or other camping accoutrements just sleeping as I was tired.

That's when you back into his cruiser and tell him sorry guess I was too tired to drive .

Practically every law ever written can be construed as 'unconstitutional' ... as it always takes away one freedom or another, for either the actor or the actee.

We accept some laws much easier than others, and generally accept the laws that protect one party from another, usually because it's convenient or has no affect on our individual lifestyle.

A law might be ethical, moral, or protective, but it still takes away the freedom of one person to perform an action.

For example: Laws against robbing a person. Takes away the right or the ability for one party to rob and steal from another. It's not moral, it's not ethical, it's not even nice, and it's not always successful, but some individuals believe it's OK to rob someone -- culturally, we believe that's a wrong act.

Some societies feel it's a brave act, or a necessary act, or a proper act, to steal from another person (in a neighboring tribe, for example) ... so, we might believe it's wrong, but not every culture in the world believes as we do ...

Laws come about because more people believe one way, or less people another. It's the enforcement that makes a law apply ... we can't regulate behavior, we can only penalize people after the fact, and usually that forces compliance, not always because it's a law or that people believe in it.

Laws are generally accepted because the penalty is greater than the gain if you break it. If you rob someone of five hundred dollars - and the penalty is five years. That's not a good value exchange for the behavior.