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Large piles of wheelless bikes stacked alongside tents and lean tots are permanent fixture in many homeless encampments throughout Los Angeles.
Men and women fill their days tinkering, hoping to make some money or use the assembled or repaired bikes to get around.
According to LAtimes, that practice could be threatened after the Los Angeles City Council voted 10-4 to ask City Atty. Mike Feuer to draft a law prohibiting bikes from being repaired or sold on streets or sidewalks.
Councilmen Joe Buscaino, who is running for mayor and has focused his campaign on public safety and addressing homeless encampments, introduced the motion in the fall targeting bicycle "chop shops."
The city shouldn't be sending a message that a right-of-way can be blocked, nothing that large collections of bikes in homeless encampments have made it hard for people to walk the streets. Some council members also said that when Feuer's office writes the ordinace, it should target locations where large numbers of bikes present and it's clear they've been stolen, L.A. just changed its entire approach to homelessness. They have undertaken a major shift in it's approach to homelessness, one that puts priority on cleaning unsightly street encampments
"The proposed bike ban is more of the same: a facial attempt to declutter targeted sidewalks but whose real goal is to remove and banish homeless people from their community. This proposed policy opens the door for increased policing, profiling, and discriminatory enforcement." said Pete White, executive director of Los Angeles Community Action Network.