Several stories this morning about the planned enforcement of trespassing laws at the Gaithersburg shopping center:

From the Gazette:

Day labor site gets shut down
City police to begin trespass enforcement today
Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2006

Police this morning planned to begin enforcing trespassing laws at a Gaithersburg parking lot where day laborers have gathered to find work for three years.

Police said they expected that in most cases workers would be dispersed, not arrested.

An AP story, found at WTOP:

Gaithersburg Police to Enforce Law at Day Labor Site

GAITHERSBURG, Md. (AP) - Gaithersburg city police planned to enforce trespassing laws Wednesday morning at a shopping center where day laborers gather, a move that comes after efforts to find a permanent site for the workers fell through.

Police hoped to disperse the roughly 100 people who gather at the shopping center parking lot each morning to wait for potential employers, said Cpl. Randy Wagner, a spokesman for the Gaithersburg police.

Generally the AP story had it right, but I had two problems with it:

“Any time there has been an offer for property, it has been nixed,” said Kim Propeack of the National Capital Immigrant Coalition.

Yes, often by the worker advocates themselves.

Gaithersburg has rejected nearly 30 attempts to find a permanent facility. As a result, workers have gathered in informal groups, usually along heavily traveled Route 355.

This might be a bit less misleading if it said “Gaithersburg property owners have rejected nearly 30 attempts by the City government to lease space for a day laborer site”. It isn’t that the City hasn’t been trying, it’s that no one wants to have it on their property.

In the Washington Times,

Day laborers told to stay out of lot

By Keyonna Summers
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
September 20, 2006

Dozens of day laborers who have gathered for years in a Gaithersburg parking lot must find a new place to seek work beginning today because the lot’s owners have asked police to shut down the site.

The lot, owned by S&B Partnership, is at 117 North Frederick Ave. between a shopping complex and Grace United Methodist Church. Laborers had been allowed to loiter there daily until 9:30 a.m.

“Residents said that the people who gathered in the lot were wandering around the neighborhood [and that] they had safety concerns, that people were urinating in their yards,” said Paul Meehan, the lot’s property manager. “We’d like to be good neighbors to the neighborhood, and we’d like to work as best as we can with the city.”

The times story makes the problem more clear:

Since then, about 30 property owners have blocked the plan by refusing to lease space for a center, and residents have complained that two other potential sites for the center were too close to homes and schools.

Channel 4 has video and a story:

Gaithersburg Day Laborers Face Arrest
Police Ask News Crews To Move

[…text from AP story…]

Police even approached news crews on the parking lot Wednesday morning and asked them to leave, NBC4 reporter Tracee Wilkins said.

Channel 7 and Channel 9 are both carrying the AP story, and the Washington Post doesn’t get it.