Business owners in Mesa discuss day-laborer issue
Justin Juozapavicius
The Arizona Republic
Jul. 14, 2005 12:00 AM
MESA - If the day-labor explosion here had a ground zero, this would be it.
Business owners and landlords at Broadway and Gilbert roads met this week to figure out a new solution to an old problem: suspected undocumented immigrants congregating on street corners waiting for work.
But it doesn't stop there. Owners in a recent survey said they also do battle daily with panhandlers and transients in the area, often coming across plastic bags that appear to have had drugs in them and finding people going to the bathroom by trash bins.
"It's like they come out of the woodwork," said a frustrated Ned Brimley, owner of Ned's Krazy Sub, where police officers, city neighborhood officials and business owners who just wanted to vent met Monday. "You rarely see the same face twice."
Brimley's sandwich shop is in a strip mall at the southeastern corner of Broadway and Gilbert, where neon-yellow signs reading "Day Labor Pick-Up Prohibited" are staked in front. But business owners said that offers little deterrent:
* David Singh, who owns the 7-Eleven on the corner, said people are afraid to pump gas or come into the store because of the day laborers. * Karen Spaulding, who owns Cannibal's Pipes & More in the strip mall, said her shop was robbed at gunpoint Friday night. Police have not made an arrest and have not determined if the robber was from the area.
* Gilbert Rodriguez, who is the landlord for the strip mall, said he regularly chases day laborers off the property.
"We know you're frustrated," said Councilman Mike Whalen, whose south-central Mesa district is part of a changing demographic that saw the city's Hispanic population reach more than 100,000 in 2003, according to census figures. The only thing that seemed to keep many day laborers from clustering near the mall and the adjacent 7-Eleven on Monday was the sight of police cars at the meeting. The workers moved across Broadway to an am/pm convenience store or the Domino's Pizza.
Talk inevitably turned to building a day-labor center instead of chasing the problem away to another part of town by ticketing loiterers.
"You've got to have a place for them to go," Whalen said. "The day-labor concept comes up, but nobody wants it in their neighborhood."
In Mesa, where the population is roughly 23 percent Hispanic, debate over building a center has reached a critical point. But the City Council won't allow one unless it is built with private dollars and a guarantee it will employ only workers with legal status.