Merenbach Law

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Dennis: This is Dennis Merenbach, we’re back live we’re at KTMS 1250 on your radio dial. Call me at 962-8731 or 966-1750, if you’re mobile just hit star 1250 and you’ll be right into our radio booth. Hello Ron, welcome to the show.

Ron: Morning Dennis.

Dennis: What are, what are your comments today?

Ron: Well, you very kindly caught me, certainly. I was curious because I’ve been in charge of one of the political campaign signs in the area and we’ve been putting them on private property with permission. But we’ve had many of them defaced and I was just curious on, we’ve almost caught a couple of them, but if we do catch people what do we do? I mean, we can’t physically retain them, can you?

Dennis: No, you know everybody’s more concerned about keeping the peace. We don’t want to have anything that escalates into a situation, which can be detrimental to any person. You’re talking about a situation where people are putting up these signs for their various candidates on public, or personal property, or private property?

Ron: Well, I’m the head of this campaign sign committee and we’ve been putting them up on private property and then other people come by and spray paint them and deface them.

Dennis: I see. So what you’re doing is, you have authority from the land owner to put up your signs and the people from the opposition or whatever, come along and they either take them down or they deface them so they’re no longer viable?

Ron: Correct.

Dennis: Alright, obviously if they were to come across your property and for that purpose it’s a trespass. It’s an unconsented crossing into your property, that is illegal, it’s a misdemeanor. If you saw people who were actually getting out of their cars, coming onto your property, and doing something like that you can take down their license number, you can call law enforcement and say these people are coming onto my property…

Ron: Well, the problem is Dennis, is that it’s not my property it’s the property that we were given permission to put the signs on.

Dennis: Yes, well I know what you’re saying and if you have permission from the property owner to watch their property then you might have the authority to do that. I think in any event, however, it’s not a bad idea if you want to take down people’s addresses or their license number and make complaints about them, I mean, it’s easy to find out who these people are, you know?

Ron: Yeah, well the couple we almost caught the other night were on bicycles, that’s the problem. And so they just scooted off real quick and we were…

Dennis: Well, you want to be careful also you know you don’t really want to create a physical confrontation. I usually tell people because I really believe there’s almost no reason to ever have a physical confrontation. Is that you just get that sign down and you put up another one right away, you’ve got to figure you’re going to have a percentage of losses. There are some people who go around and do that just for the fun of it and it has nothing to do with whether it’s your party or it’s your candidate or nothing they just think it’s a fun thing to do.

Ron: Well, the one’s that we have up are all too.. same kinds of writing and pretty much the same.

Dennis: Well, you know when you become an advocate for your person sometimes your bad judgment gets in the way and you do all these things even though they’re illegal, and they are illegal. That, they are going to do it, I wish I could give you an easy remedy but I don’t think there is a common sense easy remedy to this problem though.

Ron: Yeah, that’s what we’ve done Dennis, is just to take these down and repaint them, we’ve done about 40 in fact this weekend because I knew it was going to be such an open weekend we took them down for the weekend.

Dennis: It’s also you know, Halloween. So, you’re going to have kids going from place and they don’t think anything about the political implications they’re going to think it’s fun to take your sign down.

Ron: Sure.

Dennis: You know, between that and putting garbage on your front porch I think I’d rather have my sign taken down.

Ron: Well, we appreciate your show and thank you very much.

Dennis: Thank you very much for calling Ron, we’re looking forward to hearing from you again. Alright, well this is Dennis Merenbach, we’re on 1250 KTMS Santa Barbara. You can call me at 962-8731 and we’re going to be listening to all your calls, taking them, and we’re going to be talking to you real soon. I do want to tell you that KTMS is going to be represented out there at Isla Vista; Tammy Cobose is going to be walking around the streets with her radio that says KTMS and going to be interviewing people. You’re going to notice her because she’s going to have no costume on, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have clothes on, but she doesn’t have any costume on and she’ll walk around with her radio and she’s going to interview all of you people. Be nice to her, she’s a very nice person and she’s going to be giving her show on Monday with the comments of the people who are out there in Isla Vista having a good time. Again, I’d like to stress a few things that we’ve covered in this particular segment. A couple of things we talked about is Isla Vista and the fact that young people out there do not get cited for drug or alcohol related offense, don’t do that. If you do get a citation, and this is really important, if you do get cited out there, you know the officer comes around, he cites you or gives you a piece of paper, he tells you to throw out that drink, you know that beverage you that you have in your cup. He’s also going to tell you to leave the area, the whole purpose of the cite release is to, is that you’re suppose to remove yourself from the area of temptation. Now, 15 minutes later, if that officer sees you walking around with another cup in your hand even though it’s a cite release situation he is going to put you in custody. So just don’t think just because it’s an innocuous cite release type of thing that it doesn’t have some teeth in it. His purpose is to correct the problem, his purpose is to say get out of this area and I will assure you if law enforcement does see you, again after he’s cited you, regardless of how nice and sweet you are, you are going to get arrested. You’re going to be put in custody. You’re going to be taken down to the Isla Vista patrol area. There are going to be vans there, you’re going to be bused. I’ve already gone through this scenario; at least 250 people last year went into jail. Now, that was because we didn’t even have 30,000 people and we’re going to have 30,000 people there. We know we’re going to have a lot more. Well, new people I’d like you to also write to me at P.O. Box 4458 “You And the Law” Santa Barbara, CA 93140 Give me some lawyer jokes, we’ll put them on the air. Give me some questions that you have, I’ll talk about them. And next week we’re going to have another show, you’ll be hearing the promo on it during this entire week and I hope that you’re going to be listening. This is your news authority 1250 KTMS Santa Barbara.