Seeds of Dissension Linger
Nearly 200 protesters cupping red and white candles formed a glimmering fortress around Los Angeles' largest urban garden Sunday evening in a final effort to hold on to the cilantro, chayote and sense of community they have cultivated for more than a decade.
After nearly 20 years of uncertainty, the fate of these 14 acres in South Los Angeles was finally decided in court earlier this month. The land, known as the South Central Community Garden, must be turned over to its owner, who plans to build a warehouse on it.
Some of the 350 farmers, who have tilled the land under a temporary agreement that stretched to 13 years, say they would turn to civil disobedience -- perhaps even protecting the plants with their bodies -- in a last desperate attempt to save the garden.
Families have been camping on the site, fearful that the locks would be changed in the dark of night. They had several meetings last week to try to rally public support to preserve their verdant plots. Activists have converged on the site to help organize peaceful protests.
Standing in front of a sign that read, "L.A. needs more farm land," a young boy smashed a cardboard depiction of a bulldozer with a gardening hoe. An organizer shouted, "This is what we're going to do when the bulldozers come."
The landowner, Ralph Horowitz, who has been through a legal odyssey of his own, said he won't change his mind. And he has a string of court victories to back him. The warehouse is coming, he said last week in an interview. He has a few more court hearings aimed at carrying out the legal eviction, which probably will involve sheriff's deputies to serve notices to the farmers to abandon the site.
"If they ever had a shot, which they really never did, all that stuff is over," said Horowitz.
He said the gardeners want to use the land "forever without having to pay any taxes, without having to buy it." People who lounge on blankets in a public park cannot lay claim to that land, Horowitz said, so why should the farmers be allowed to squat on his? He pays for the land, he said, and every day that passes with the farmers on it, he loses money.
The land has been mired in dispute since the mid-1980s, when the city used its legal powers to forcefully buy the property from Horowitz for a trash-to-energy incinerator.
