For nearly two years now, longtime homeless rights advocate Peter Marin has been threatening to sue the City of Santa Barbara over an ordinance prohibiting oversized vehicles from parking on city streets. Late last week, Marin and his Committee for Social Justice organization made good on that threat, filing a federal civil rights complaint on behalf of 14 individuals who live in their RVs. Marin has argued the city’s ordinance that bans oversized vehicles — defined as any vehicle bigger than 80 inches wide, 82 inches high, or 25 feet long — was passed in 2016 to provide city police the legal pretext to chase RV dwellers out of town while maintaining the appearance that they’re acting to enhance traffic safety for motorists.
When the City Council voted to adopt the ordinance, it did so on the grounds that oversized vehicles blocked sight lines of motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians, thus making the roads more hazardous. Marin and his attorney, Russell Brown, argue that the law is inherently discriminatory because it offers a host of exemptions to many classes of oversized vehicles — delivery vans, contractor vans, tour buses — that are not available to people who happen to live in their RVs.
Among the plaintiffs are about five who suffer from chronic disabilities. Some fit stereotypes of being rough around the edges, and so too are their vehicles. During last Friday’s press conference in front of City Hall, one of the plaintiffs drove his beat-up RV around De la Guerra Plaza, honking his horn. “I get that I don’t want that guy parked in front of my house,” noted Brown, “but restrictions that say you can’t park anywhere are unreasonable.” The Constitution gives all citizens the right to travel wherever they choose, Brown argued, but the city ordinance effectively bans a class of people from the streets of Santa Barbara.