CA Court Rules Cyber Cafe Cameras Constitutional

mbstone writes: "A California appellate court has upheld [PDF link], 2-1, a Garden Grove, California ordinance requiring so-called 'cyber cafes' to impose a curfew, hire security guards, and install video surveillance cameras capable of identifying patrons. The opinion is a must-read; the dissenting judge called the law 'Orwellian,' and pointed out that 'even the government of Malaysia' was 'too ashamed to enforce' a similar proposal." It appears that the ordinances were enacted in part due to crime involving "gang activity" and to curtail school-children from using the facilities during school hours (unless accompanied by a guardian).

Comments

The logical conclusion

[Flexagon]

From the opinion,

The most recent incident, occurring the day before the memorandum was written, was the murder of a 20- year-old male while he was standing in front of a CyberCafe.

In other words, the first specific act mentioned wasn't even in the cafe. Does Garden Grove require or advocate similar monitoring inside each and every establishment that is in the same business as one in which a murder was ever committed in front of? How far in front of?

Re:"gang activity"?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

"strange culture". good word there, lets make sure that our lawmakers make anything "strange" an illegal activity before it becomes a "culture". the parent poster asks the reader if he or she has ever been to a LAN center, but i'd really like to know what "LAN center" he/she has been to. obviously a diverse amount across the country. i guess they must all be just a vile gathering of criminal activity. informative? what information has this person presented? nothing but a biased, uninformed opinion. thanks, but no thanks, moron.

Insanity

[Thomas A. Anderson]

This is legislation designed to make up for incompetent busniess owners.

I own and run a gaming center and have zero problems with students skipping class and violence in or near the store. How?

1) I'm only open when the high school is closed. This means I open at 3pm on weekdays (noon on weekends and holidays). This may sound like a big deal, but it's not - 85% of my business comes from local high and jr. high schools (and most of the other are adults who work during the day).

2) I reserve the right to throw anybody out of the store I want. And I do, but only when someone gets out of hand (forgets that it's just a game). I set a tone of "have fun and be respectful" and my customers pick up on this.

No, I'm not in southern cal where there are more gangs, but still - this is not rocket science.

just my experience.

Near El Camino College...

[Anonymous Coward]

7 or 8 years ago, I attended El Camino Community College which is next door to Garden Grove as far as municipalies go.

Garden Grove is a beautiful suburban city with virtually no manufactoring and no high density commercial zones, just acre after acre of homes, generous yards, parks, strip malls, and the occasional car dealership or big box store (such as Target).

They also have a very large number of kids ranging from 14 to 23 years old. When I was a student in the area, there was virtually nothing to do but take the bus down the road to Manhattan Beach Mall. By the time I graduated, there were already fears and concerns that these bored kids might be tempted to join a gang.

I believe a cyber-cafe is a better diversion than joining a gang, but let's be honest here - those cafes do cost money, and people do loose their tempers, get addicted, or otherwise develop an unhealthy fixtation to playing video games all day.

I think Garden Grove has gone too far, but I really can't think of a better, less costly solution to what they perceive as a problem. The ideal situation is, of course, to give all those kids something socially-acceptable to do, but what?

Get a job? In this economy?

Go to school and get training? You did know Califonia has a budget crisis and is drastically cutting Community College offerings?

Learn to sing and dance and join the worldwide touring production of "Up With People?" Puh-leeze.

Dumb question of the moment

[Crypto Gnome]

But don't you have video-surveillance (and possibly even security guards, presumably out of sight) in large department stores?

Yeah it's a shame they had to pass a local odrinance but there things aren't taken lightly.

Obviously there's been MAJOR ISSUES and equally as obviously the owners of the CyberCafes apparently weren't doing enough to deal with the issue.

READ THE PDF people, criminal activity, gang activity, a guy was MURDERED, and schoolies were goofing off on the web during school hours. At a minimum, the last shows a dereliction of duty on the part of the operator of said CyberCafe.

The only thing I see *really* wrong in this is where the comment was made "Polisar also reported that patrol officers were finding school aged children at these establishments during school hours, and he expressed concern about minors being able to access inappropriate and dangerous web sites"

Are you expecting all CyberCafes to censor the internet for you?

Government mandated censorship is always, absolutely and unconditionally a bad thing.

Re:Dumb question of the moment

[orthogonal]

READ THE PDF people, criminal activity, gang activity, a guy was MURDERED, and schoolies were goofing off on the web during school hours. At a minimum, the last shows a dereliction of duty on the part of the operator of said CyberCafe. ....

Obviously there's been MAJOR ISSUES and equally as obviously the owners of the CyberCafes apparently weren't doing enough to deal with the issue.


It's not the job of the CyberCafes to act as police -- the CyberCafes pay taxes that pay for cops and DAs, whose job it is to deal with crime. And where have those cops and DAs been, anyway?

So what you're saying is that existing laws -- against murder and truancy -- were broken, and that rather than enforce those existing laws, Garden Grove chose to pass a new law that would penalize innocent parties and create a financial burden for a business that committed no crime, but had the misfortune of being in an area where the crimes were committed?

Isn't respect for law in general already undermined by Garden Grove's demonstrated inability to enforce existing law? If Garden Grove is unable to effectively prosecute murders or truancies, how can we be expected to believe it will be able to enforce this new law?

This is a typical move by legislators looking to get re-elected for "solving" problems they're really ignoring.

It happens on the left, when Democrats claim credit for dozens of gun control laws that they never get around to fully funding, while ignoring the real problem: criminals ignore laws and circumvent background checks -- because -- surprise! they're criminals.

It happens on the right, when Republicans pass more and more Draconian anti-drug laws (it's double-extra-super illegal to sell drugs within 500 feet of a school!), none of which actually remedy the real problems with drugs: sales to minors and that addicts want to break into my house to steal my stero to sell it for more crack.

It happens on the left with "hate crime" legislation, the ridiculous proposition that killing someone because you don't like his ancestry is a worse crime than killing someone because you want his wallet. Murder's illegal, right? But it's less bad if Karl Klansman kills Willy Whiteman for Willie's wallet than if he kills Bobby Blackman out of racial hate? I'm sure Willy's survivors are comforted by this.

It happens on the right when John Ashcroft tells you with a stright face that we are safer because Tommy Chong's been sent to Federal prison -- prison for God's sake -- for selling glass bongs!

Now tell me, of all the pot-smokers you know, how many started smoking because they thought bongs looked cool and wanted an excuse to use one? Oh right, pot-smoking tends to precede bong-buying? So what do laws against selling drug paraphernalia achieve? Oh right, they let prosecutors get photo-ops on their way to re-election! I feel safer already.

Laws like Garden Grove's don't inconvenience real criminals -- anyone who is not deterred by life prison sentences for murder isn't going to suddenly flee at the prospect of a curfew. It just inconveniences those of us who try to follow the laws; now we can't be out after some arbitrary hour.

Laws like Garden Groves just allow the local legislators to claim they're "doing something" about the problem -- so please re-elect them -- while letting them ignore the real source of the problem and while penalizing law-abiding business owners and citizens with more and more onerous regulations.

Re:"Reserve the right" is a myth

[some guy I know]

Civil rights trump business owners' private property rights (and rightfully so).

This kind of crap thinking ("the good of the many outweighs the good of the few, or the one") by too many people is one of the (many) things that is wrong with this country.
An owner of an establishment should be able to refuse entry to anyone he/she wants, for any reason.
It's his/her property, after all.
If members of the community don't like the admittance policy, then they can boycott the establishment.

(Oh, before anyone brings up pre-60s Southern U.S. segregation as a counter-example, those were laws as well, and IMO worse than laws requiring unqualified admittance.
But laws either way are bad.
Let the owner decide who he/she wants inside, and potential patrons will vote with their pocketbooks.)

Re:"Reserve the right" is a myth

[pauljlucas]

An owner of an establishment should be able to refuse entry to anyone he/she wants, for any reason. It's his/her property, after all.

There is a distinction between private property for one's home (where I agree you can do as you please) and a business open to the general public. In the latter case, a business exists to serve the community. As such, you give up some absolute rights.

Laws are apparently needed because of prejudice and hatred against minorites, women, and even men with long hair (as a non-race/gender example). Again, if you want absolute dominion, you have a recourse: don't be open to the general public. A second recourse is get a different line of work if you don't like the terms so much.

Let the owner decide who he/she wants inside, and potential patrons will vote with their pocketbooks.)

While I agree that patrons should vote with their dollars, it should be based on the quality of a business good and services, not admittance.

Business owners perceive too much power. I hope there are many more lawsuits to slap that wrong notion out of their heads.

Re: fascist idealism

[some guy I know]

a business exists to serve the community.

No, it doesn't.
It exists to make its owners money.
One way to do this is to "serve the community".
I know about the prejudice angle; I addressed it in my next paragraph.
Potential patrons can vote with their pocketbooks.
If the owner of a business wants to exclude someone based on race, gender, sexual preference, etc., let him/her.
Such a business will not be as successful as the one down the street that doesn't engage in such behavior, because many people (such as I) will boycott a business that engages in discrimination.
There were several examples of this during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, e.g., bus boycotts, etc.

Business owners perceive too much power. I hope there are many more lawsuits to slap that wrong notion out of their heads.

Business owners have no power without customers.
Let individual people decide.
It's not wrong to let a person run his/her business the way he/she wants (barring public safety/nuisance issues, etc.).