Pueblo City Council back to the drawing board with 'no sit, no lie' ordinance
A majority of Pueblo City Council wants to ban homeless people from sitting or lying down in business districts, but a "no sit, no lie" ordinance still failed in a 5-2 vote on April 28.
Earlier this year, councilor Joe Latino requested that council reintroduce a failed 2022 ordinance prohibiting individuals from sitting or lying down in the Downtown business area's rights of way between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m., or "regular business hours," according to a city of Pueblo background paper.
However, Deputy Attorney Harley Gifford said April 28 he was later directed by council to expand the original ordinance to include more than just the Downtown business area.
"I couldn't find any other examples of a citywide type of 'no sit, no lay,' so we tried to tailor it to the business areas that council expressed concerns about," Gifford said.
The ordinance reviewed by council on April 28 included the Bessemer, Mesa Junction, U.S. Highway 50 and Eastside business areas in addition to Downtown.
However, some members of council expressed a desire to expand the ordinance. Councilor Roger Gomez asked if the ordinance could be amended to be citywide, and Councilor Regina Maestri suggested the ordinance be enforced at all hours of the day.
"This should be a 24/7 thing... that's when the windows get broken," Maestri said. "I'm not understanding why we're the bad guy. Guess what? If homeless people were just homeless, and they just sat around and they cleaned up their mess, put their stuff in the trash, didn't litter, didn't defecate — it might be a whole different story."
While speaking in support of a sit-lie ordinance of some kind, Councilor Brett Boston and Latino also expressed concerns about Pueblo's homeless disrupting business areas.
Pueblo City Council President Mark Aliff said he initially had concerns about a sit-lie ordinance adding onto existing laws, but said Pueblo Police Chief Chris Noeller made a "compelling argument" for such an ordinance during a work session.
Councilor Dennis Flores said he felt the city's existing loitering ordinance was a sufficient enough law and that police already had "enough to do." Councilor Sarah Martinez said an ordinance restricting sitting and lying was not only "unnecessary," but also disproportionately targeting the homeless.
"We need real, compassionate solutions — housing, outreach, mental health care and support services — and this ordinance doesn't provide any of those," Martinez said. "So for those reasons, I'll be voting no, because criminalizing survival is not leadership and it's not the direction that our city should be going."
The April 28 vote failed 5-2, with Latino and Maestri being the only "yes" votes. Following the ordinance's failure, Aliff directed Gifford to work with Latino to draft another ordinance for future review.
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Pueblo Chieftain reporter James Bartolo can be reached at JBartolo@gannett.com. Support local news, subscribe to the Pueblo Chieftain at subscribe.chieftain.com.
This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Pueblo City Council can't agree to terms on no sit/lie ordinance
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