By Linda Taaffe

A federal judge is scheduled to decide by next week whether Los Altos police may continue to ticket day laborers who solicit work from the streets while a lawsuit challenging the city’s anti-solicitation ordinance is in court.

Judge Jeremy Fogel told Los Altos city officials and the group of day laborers suing the city that he would give them his written opinion by the end of the month during last week’s court hearing, July 15.

Police may continue to enforce the city law until then.

Attorneys from Morrison & Foerster and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund representing the Workers Commission and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul filed an injunction April 23 to prohibit the city from enforcing its anti-solicitation law until their lawsuit against Los Altos is settled.

Attorneys representing the workers claim that they are likely to win their case against the city and that the continued enforcement of the ordinance during the pending lawsuit has caused workers irreparable harm. The threat of a citation has scared away some potential employers looking to hire day laborers, attorneys said.

Local workers sued the city Feb. 20, hoping that the city would repeal the law and provide laborers a new worker center after St. Joseph the Worker Center closed due to overcrowding. The Los Altos City Council has refused to repeal the anti-solicitation law, saying city officials put it in place in 1999 for traffic safety reasons.

Workers claim that the No Vehicle Solicitation Ordinance is allegedly a violation of their free speech rights under the United States Constitution.

Los Altos’ ordinance limits day worker activity on the streets by prohibiting potential employers from soliciting workers from their vehicles in specifically zoned areas. The law is unable to prohibit workers from standing on the sidewalk.