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 Organization (ECHO) and a resident of Atascadero, told the council the public concern about drug activity is real but urged the public and the council to separate people using drugs from people experiencing homelessness who want help. He said the county has a very limited number of treatment beds for people seeking addiction services: “we only have a total of 25 beds between two organizations, Sun Street Center and Morro Bay Recovery,” Solheim said, adding that only six of those beds are for women and 13 serve people with co-occurring mental-health and substance-use disorders.

Police and city officials responded with a mix of immediate enforcement changes and longer-term service plans. Police Chief Suttles (identified in the meeting transcript as “chief Suttles”) said recent changes in state law and in department staffing give officers more tools. “In November, the state of California passed Proposition 36...after a certain amount of convictions, it now becomes a felony,” he said, adding that the change will allow law enforcement to pursue more serious charges against repeat drug dealers. He said the department has added a Community Action Team — which pairs outreach and resource referral with enforcement — and a Special Enforcement Team focused on drug dealing.

Suttles said the city’s ability to act has increased in recent months: “I think that we can bring that balance...there are things that have happened recently within the law, and there are some things that have happened within our department to try to change that balance to give us a little more resources that we can utilize to deal with these types of issues.”

Solheim and other commenters urged the council to invest in treatment and services. Solheim said access to treatment is a bottleneck: people who want help can wait weeks for available programs, especially women and people with co-occurring disorders. He thanked the police and city staff for recent outreach efforts and said local nonprofits are working to fill service gaps.

Council members did not take action during the public forum because the Brown Act limits discussion of items not on the agenda, but staff and the chief indicated they would follow up with affected business owners. City Manager Jim Lewis and Chief Suttles were both referenced as points of contact for business owners seeking further coordination.

Why it matters: Business owners said loitering and street drug sales have a measurable business impact and raise safety concerns; service providers warned that countywide shortages of treatment beds constrain the ability to move people who want help into care. The council did not adopt new policy at the meeting, but police described stepped-up enforcement and outreach that council members said they would monitor.

Ending: Council members closed the forum after hearing the comments and asked staff to coordinate follow-up with speakers who volunteered contact information. The city manager and police department will be the primary points of contact for next steps reported back to the council.