Courts

Berkeley businesses sue city over Harrison homeless camp

Nine business and property owners, including Fieldwork Brewing, Boichik Bagels and Covenant Winery, filed the lawsuit Tuesday.

The complaint includes extensive documentation, including this photograph, of what the plaintiffs say is a public nuisance on and around Harrison Street in northwest Berkeley.

A coalition of northwest Berkeley businesses — including Fieldwork Brewing, Boichik Bagels and Covenant Winery — is suing the city over a longstanding homeless encampment on Harrison Street.

Nine business and property owners filed the 37-page complaint Tuesday in Alameda County Superior Court citing public and private nuisances associated with the Harrison Street homeless camp and other encampments nearby.

The plaintiffs are represented by law firms Gavrilov & Brooks, of Sacramento, and Arizona-based Tully Bailey LLP, which secured a high-profile court order and injunction in 2023 requiring the city of Phoenix to clear a homeless camp there.

(In late August, the Arizona injunction was upheld on appeal.)

"This is not about money because we're not asking for money," said Ilan Wurman, one of the attorneys on the case. "No one wants anybody to go to jail. It's not about criminalizing homelessness. The point is that it's untenable for everybody."

The news comes just as the Berkeley City Council is set to consider Tuesday night what could be a more "aggressive" approach to cleaning up some of its most intractable homeless encampments — including those in the Harrison Street corridor.

The filing features a range of horror stories related to the "sprawling public encampment of tents and RVs" on Harrison Street between Fifth and Ninth streets, which spill onto the side streets as well.

The lawsuit includes extensive observations from city staff who have documented encampment-related issues over the years in various public memos and in other communications.

"This case is about whether the City of Berkeley, when acting as a landowner, must follow the same nuisance laws that any private landowner must follow, and whether it owes an obligation to its citizens … to maintain its streets and other rights of way free of obstructions so that the public may access and use these public rights for which they pay taxes," attorneys for the plaintiffs wrote. "The answer to both questions is yes."

The complaint includes extensive documentation, including this photograph, of what the plaintiffs say is a public nuisance on and around Harrison Street in northwest Berkeley.

The plaintiffs allege that the city "allowed encampments to remain even though shelter was available and often refused by the individuals camping," and says the city not only permitted the campers to stay but invited them into the area "knowing they would be public nuisances."

The lawsuit also references recent Supreme Court decisions (Boise and Grants Pass) that "made clear that municipalities are permitted to remove public encampments whether or not there is sufficient alternative space available for those camping."

According to this week's lawsuit, the involved Berkeley business owners have tried for years to work with the city to resolve encampment-related issues without involving the courts.

"The City of Berkeley refuses to act in part because it fears litigation by advocates on behalf of the unsheltered and those living in RVs," attorneys wrote.

"It is time for the residents, businesses, and property owners of the City of Berkeley to be heard and for the City and the courts to enforce their rights," they said.

The plaintiffs have asked the court to declare the "public rights-of-way on Harrison Street between Fifth and Ninth Streets, and on Fifth through Ninth Streets just off of Harrison, to be a public and private nuisance."

They have asked for a similar finding "along Codornices Creek parallel to Harrison just to the north, between the railroad tracks west of Fourth Street and Eighth Street"; and on Dwight Way between Fourth and Sixth streets.

"At a minimum, an injunction must ensure that the Defendant remediates, maintains, and clears these public rights of way of tents and RVs," the attorneys write.

The Scanner asked the city of Berkeley for comment but had not heard back as of publication time.

Stay tuned for continuing coverage.

Read the full lawsuit. It was added to this story after publication.