Residents and service providers press Atascadero council on homeless loitering and drug activity near South El Camino businesses; police outline new enforcement

Business owners and residents told the Atascadero City Council on a night of public comment that loitering and street-level drug sales outside businesses on the south end of El Camino Real have driven customers away and left proprietors feeling unsafe.

The comments focused on Hawkins Plaza and the area in front of a laundromat that several speakers said is frequently used by people selling drugs and by people they described as unhoused. “I own a business in Atascadero...people bring food there to my laundromat, and they leave it,” business owner Jerry Tanamoto said. “I’ve called the police...they said we can’t do a whole lot unless they’ve committed a crime.”

The remarks drew similar testimony from an employee who said she repeatedly calls police when people sell drugs or loiter outside the laundromat. “A drug dealer...was charging his phone at the laundromat,” Pearl Castro said, describing an episode that prompted a police response.

Austin Solheim, director of development for El Camino Homeless…