Moorpark Day Laborers Move to Civic Center Site : Jobs: The city approved the new location after a businessman complained that workers in his parking lot hurt sales.

Most of Moorpark’s day laborers showed up Tuesday at the Moorpark Civic Center on the first official work day after council members sanctioned the city property as a new hiring site.

But some stragglers, who instead gathered at a convenience store parking lot where laborers traditionally have congregated, pointed out a deficiency in the council-approved hiring site: no coffee and no doughnuts.

About a dozen of the laborers arrived at the parking lot of the Tipsy Fox convenience store early Tuesday to get coffee and doughnuts from the shop next door. Their presence prompted the doughnut shop’s manager to express skepticism that city officials would ever break the workers’ daily routine.

“I think they’re going to have two places to hang around, instead of one,” said Steve Liu, 29, manager of The Donut Shop.

The Moorpark City Council voted last week to allow the day laborers to congregate on the grounds of the Civic Center. The vote was taken after the owner of the Tipsy Fox complained that the workers’ presence scared away potential customers.

Despite those who failed to make the move, one advocate for the workers was pleased with the mass relocation efforts.

“The compliance with the new site has been overwhelming,” said Gregory L. Simons, immigrant outreach coordinator for El Concilio del Condado de Ventura. Ultimately, he said, more than 30 workers drifted to the Civic Center, about two blocks west of the Tipsy Fox. Between 30 and 50 workers usually congregate in Moorpark looking for work.

City officials and some of the day laborers have pointed out that the workers do not have to move to the Civic Center. The men are legally entitled to solicit work in public places, including parking lots.

But the laborers said they wanted to defer to the wishes of the Tipsy Fox owner.

Now that the laborers have moved to the new site, Simons said, all they need is to get work. “Right now, we’re looking for employer participation,” he said.

To notify employers about where they can now find the day laborers, Simons and the workers put a large cardboard sign in the window of the Tipsy Fox and passed out flyers in English and Spanish.

Carlos Munoz, 30, one of the complying workers, said he was worried that some of his fellow day laborers would prevent potential employers from driving to the Civic Center. If contractors and others can pick up laborers at the old site, he said, they will not bother to look for the new location.

Earl Stagner, one of three employers who stopped by the new site before 8 a.m., offered hope to workers that the new location would be fruitful. “I think it’ll work,” said Stagner, the owner of a small landscaping business who hired one young man to do yard work for $6 per hour.

The landscaper said he usually hires a day laborer about once a month. He learned about the new site from a newspaper article.

Councilman John Wozniak, who stopped at the doughnut shop next to the Tipsy Fox on his way to work Tuesday, said he was not worried about seeing some laborers in the parking lot.

“I think it’ll take a few days,” Wozniak said. “I figured for sure it wouldn’t happen overnight.”

Later in the morning, most of the dozen men who had been in front of the Tipsy Fox had either drifted away or had walked down High Street to the Civic Center.

After hearing complaints from hungry workers at the Civic Center, Simons decided to take matters into his own hands. He flagged down a catering truck on High Street and asked the man to stop at the new site.

The caterer, Jack Agazaryn of North Hollywood, said he drives through Moorpark every morning and will now begin stopping at the Civic Center. When he arrived at the site Tuesday, he was swarmed by about a dozen men wanting to buy coffee, doughnuts and other snacks.

“Now I’ll come here,” laborer Mac Ruano, 49, said as he stood with other men at the Civic Center. “We’ve got everything over here.”