America's Ongoing War On the Poor

The city of Costa Mesa, California has banned bicycle parking on public property except at city provided bike racks.  As an example of just how few city owned bike racks there are, drum roll please, there are a grand total of 38 legal, approved spots in the city's 30 public parks.   As a cyclist, my first reaction on hearing this bit of insane news was that some bike hating city councilman was having his own against an imaginary spandex clad, two wheeled communist threat.  But, it's a bit more than that.  The ordinance has come out of Costa Mesa's Homeless Task Force.  It seems that many of the homeless have traded their shopping carts for old bikes; loaded down with all their possessions, more often pushed than ridden.  Why deal with poverty and homelessness when it's so much easier to harass the down and out.  With any luck, they'll head over the city line and become another town's  problem.