Prior to a new Lompoc ordinance, the city’s municipal code stated that a vehicle parked on a street for more than 72 consecutive hours was subject to being towed. Steering clear of the original rule was easy for more overnight parkers than members of the Lompoc City Council assumed, City Attorney Jeff Malawy explained.
“The council had a concern that vehicles were evading being towed under our municipal code by moving sometimes only a few inches or a foot every 72 hours,” Malawy said at the council’s Oct. 21 meeting, “Technically, that allows the vehicle to evade being towed under our code section.”
Malawy introduced two ordinances during the hearing: one to amend Lompoc’s code “to say that a vehicle must move at least 300 feet in 72 hours in order to avoid being towed,” and another that revises the city’s rules about using a vehicle as a residence overnight.
While case law previously prevented Lompoc from enforcing against motor vehicles being used for residential purposes overnight on any public street, alley, or city-owned parking area, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Martin v. Boise in 2024 eliminated that barrier.
Malawy described the ordinance as simply deleting the exception, to make Lompoc’s overnight parking ban enforceable “anytime, whether there is a shelter bed available, … or not.”
During public comment, Lompoc resident Alexis Otero told the council that it has “a very openly hostile attitude towards the members of our community that are unhoused.”
“The homeless in our community are human beings, deserving of human decency, and human grace, and human compassion, and human patience,” said Otero, who added that city-provided services for anyone displaced by the parking rules should be expanded.
Lompoc resident Nick Gonzales also spoke during public comment, but in support of the two new ordinances.
“We do need to be compassionate. … Nobody’s trying to oust somebody trying to get by. I believe our public safety officials go out of their way to make sure people are directed to the right location to get the services they need,” Gonzales said. “This is for the worst of the worst. This is for the people that are setting a drug shop on the corner and dealing out of the trailer in front of the school. This is for the people who have no blatant regard for anyone else.”
Both ordinances passed 5-0 after Councilmember Victor Vega requested to reduce the 300 feet threshold to 150 feet
“It’s a very complicated issue,” Councilmember Jeremy Ball said before the vote. “Every human deserves dignity for sure. That said, over time, I do hear it from families, … some of those folks don’t feel as safe as they used to—even to allow their kids to walk to school, or to go outside and play, or just go around the block.”
Ball added that “there are places in the community where I don’t think I’d send my 6- or 7- or 10-year-old to go, past four or five trailers that, let’s be honest, are not just there to have a place to sleep. There’s a lot more going on there.”
This article appears in Oct 30 – Nov 6, 2025.