Front Page  »  

Famous nomad arrested in SLO for camping

June 16, 2014

mules3By KAREN VELIE

Since the 1800s, people have traveled up and down California bedding down alongside their pack mules or horses, but not now, especially not in the city or county of San Luis Obispo.

While working as a landscaper, 66-year-old John Sears began traveling with his mules across the country about 30 years ago, a common sight in some states such as Montana. After Sears retired at 54, he began spending full time on his hobby.

On May 29, San Luis Obispo Police officers arrested Sears after they found him sleeping near the tracks by Woodbridge Street. On his Facebook page, Sears says the police also determined his two mules were homeless.

“The metropolis says the mules are homeless, they don’t live in one of my city’s shisy (sic) buildings and they don’t go from one building to the next in my glitzy, shiny automobile, they are homeless,” Sears wrote on May 31.

Sears, who survives off his meager Social Security income, has a court date on August 14, according to his Facebook page. However, he is attempting to get an extension to November so they he can leave the area and move north were the climate is easier on his mules.

In addition, on Saturday at 11 p.m., a San Luis Obispo County Sheriff deputy woke Sears up and ordered him to move along or be cited.

“Last night, we were woken about 11 p.m. by SLO County Sheriff and told we would be cited under law 647 (e) PC if we did not pack-up and leave in the dark with automobiles blinding our vision with their bright lights and no alternative place to go unless lake Margarita, 10-miles away, is considered an alternative,” Sears said on Facebook. “We will not die for our way of life; we will live for it until we do die whether by accident, stealth, or natural causes.”


Loading...
Subjects:             
Related:


70 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

How do you ‘pick up’ after 2 mules in the City? The country is the best place for these mules.


0

How do you pick up after dopes who drop their trash wherever they are, just like the mules? How do you clean up after the drunks who puke all over town? So, what’s the big deal, or would you have all the dopes and drunks leave here too?


0

I certainly wouldn’t mind if the dopes and drunks left.


0

Then who would run the city?


0

The article does not mention that at all. Leaving trash in public is already unlawful. The man (mules) were not cited for littering.


0

Too bad Mr. Sears is a 66 year old American citizen.


If he were a newly-arrived 20 year old from Guatemala or Mexico, he’d be welcomed with open arms.


0

http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/12/politics/children-immigrant-crisis/


“The minors have overwhelmed U.S. facilities on the border, which don’t have enough food, beds or sanitary facilities…The detention centers in Texas CAN NO LONGER HOLD the large numbers of unaccompanied children or mothers traveling only with their children, forcing the federal government to open additional facilities…”


0

Classic. You’re citing the government’s use of detention centers–using them to such an extent they must open additional ones. Detention centers. I wouldn’t exactly say detention centers are the equivalent of “open arms.” Think before you write.


0

Even more classic, you failed to read the article, and do your own homework.


0

And if he were a six year old from those countries, along with Honduras and El Salvador, he’d be tossed into a decrepit bus station gulag in Phoenix with only a plastic cot to sleep on.


0

Nope. Actually they’re currently receiving free bus tickets to their destination of choice–anywhere in the USA. Once they arrive, they stay w/relatives and their kiddos get FREE healthcare, FREE dental care and FREE educations.


Meanwhile, here on the Central Coast, a homeless senior citizen with 2 mules gets booted from the Happiest City in America. Ridiculous.


0

I agree with the local ridiculousness. But again, you go off. This time you don’t even bother with trying to reference a supposed source.


Perception vs. reality. You should check into it.


0

“The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made”

Goucho Marx


Any relation to the mayor?


0

I think her moustache is bigger.


0

Perhaps someone will produce a sequel to Rambo “First Blood.” Thirty years later, a stranger comes to town and is arrested (along with his mules). Maybe they could escort him across the Chorro Creek Bridge and tell him to never come back. God help us….


0

I was unaware that he was arrested but rather cited? At any rate it does appear that there may be some sort of cooperative effort amongst law enforcement to harass him as he was recently cited in San Diego also.

It appears the “stake-holders” are attempting to use the law more and more indiscriminately as a tool to manage those they find objectionable.

It was not to long ago I was 100% pro law enforcement, not anymore. I have had to many personal experiences where they will lie and than cover under the color of authority and letter of the law when convenient. You may be next, and those all to quick to cowardly pick up a cell phone…two can play those games. It’s just trash law enforcement leave him alone.

If this keeps up, it could get ugly and don’t come crying to me.

Recently someone going by:”Stay Slo” posted a Youtube video complaining about Homeless man smoking in Meadow park. He deleted his Video and has posted comments elsewhere. It appears all to be a fabrication out of contempt and a opportunity to harass the weak.


0

You are getting it. The revolution will not be televised.


The ‘revolution’ is not the one that radicals of all stripes, anarchists, or T-party troglodytes envsion.

It is the quiet departure from so-called norms of conformity that are accepted and then brutally enforced…even though those ‘rules’ are stupid on their face.


The refusal to co-operate, the civil disobedience with unjust ‘laws’, the Gandhian method, is what works.


Can enough of America wake up and not participate in this charade ?

I don’t know, but that’s what it will take to overcome the idiots.


0

Or just vote out those who sponsor this. We have the opportunity to dump Marx and Christianson, both of whom subscribe to the SLO police state mentality.


0

Voting only encourages them.


0

647. Except as provided in subdivision (l), every person who

commits any of the following acts is guilty of disorderly conduct, a

misdemeanor:

(e) Who lodges in any building, structure, vehicle, or place,

whether public or private, without the permission of the owner or

person entitled to the possession or in control of it.


Not open container…


0

Then, as a tax-paying member of the public, I hereby grant him permission to use my portion of the public place for lodging.


There. Solved.


0

This was my exact thought. My fear is that the citation states the location as ‘railroad’. So, if he was on railroad property they might have some leverage.

I say, leave the old guy alone. I don’t mind my tax dollars paying for this guy to travel and camp in public property.


0

Huh. I just saw this man and his 2 mules in A-town on Saturday. They were walking south on ECR in front of F4L.


It was quite a sight…….One of those things that make you think, hmmmmmm……


0

Really? Okay so it is an election year, but there must be a meth lab,mugging or robbery that justifies the use of tax dollars this way. Mule hurts no-one, this use of money and time puts big afat gooey egg all over the face of our legal system.


0

Sounds like the local government needs to also build a stable at the new homeless shelter. What’s another $2M-$3M more!


0

I posted pretty much the same …earlier at 12:30. Not looking for dibs rights here, but the conservatrolls diss my comment while plauding yours for saying the same.


What’s the diff ?


I said ‘jail’…you said ‘homeless shelter’.


0

You’re the “diff”.


0

” You’re the “diff”.”


Well, I would like to think so.


I am certainly glad that I am different from the average dimwitted American.


0

Well put, awesome comment!


0

It would just go into the pockets of Hill and Torres?


0
1 2 3