Today the LA City Council repealed LAMC 85.02, which prohibited sleeping in cars, and which the Ninth Circuit found to be unconstitutional in 2014 (even though the BID Patrol never seems to have gotten the message). The Council File is here, and the most interesting part is the the City Attorney’s report explaining why they ought to repeal the law.

Here’s a possibly wack but superficially plausible theory of why this situation might lend independent support to the idea that BID security actually ought to register with the Police Commission.

See, when I talked to Officer Vicencio at the Police Commission Investigations Division, he told me that, among other things, he was under the impression that BID security was exempt from registration because of some state law that he didn’t know the details of. However, if this were true, then the municipal statute, LAMC 52.34, would contradict state law (and be preempted by it). It took the City only two years after the Ninth Circuit overturned LAMC 85.02 before they repealed the law. This makes the chance that they’d leave a contradiction hanging around for 17 years now seem pretty unlikely. Unfortunately, unlikely doesn’t mean untrue when it comes to the City of Los Angeles.

Image of lady sleeping in car is in public domain because it was made by an employee of the federal government in the course of duty performance. I got it from here.