COSTA MESA : Embattled Resident Fencing In Old Cars

Under a judge’s order to get rid of his old, rusting Cadillacs, Sid Soffer has spent recent mornings sawing and nailing up a 6-foot-tall redwood and cedar fence around two of them to get the cars out of his neighbors’ view.

Although Soffer won an appeal last week in Orange County Superior Court to at least temporarily keep the city from towing the cars away, the fence might not be enough in the long run.

“The fence, I’m told, appears to be within city standards, but that isn’t going to solve the problem,” said Assistant City Atty. Jerry Scheer. “Mr. Soffer is not exactly a naive person about anything that goes on, and I’m at a loss as to what he’s doing that for.”

Soffer, 59, has for 14 years been battling the city over his cars, which he wants to hold on to as an investment. He does not believe that the city, or any government entity, has the right to decide what he keeps on his private property merely because the neighbors say it is unsightly.

He hopes to win an appellate court decision that will nullify ordinances that allow cities to remove inoperable, unregistered or wrecked cars from private property.

“What this is all about, see, this isn’t about me and my cars. I can go and fight it, but what about the guy who can’t?” he said. “It’s gotten to the point that your neighbor has more rights on your property than you do.”

Soffer maintains that the Costa Mesa ordinance is unconstitutional and vows to continue fighting until he gets a judge to agree with him. Soffer, who cites state statutes and city ordinances from memory, has represented himself in court.

“The public nuisance is defined by law as that which is harmful to . . . a portion of the neighborhood. Harm cannot be defined as visual,” he said.

Scheer, however, said that neighbors do have the right to enjoy their property and that if a neighbor keeps abandoned, wrecked, or inoperable cars on his property, the city has the right to have them removed.

“Public property rights extend to everyone, including Mr. Soffer’s neighbors. They have a right to enjoy their property, and looking at a pile of cars day in and day out deteriorates the enjoyment and use of their property,” Scheer said.

The cars, all of them Cadillacs, have rusted and faded over the years. Many of the tires are flat or missing, and spiders make their homes inside. Soffer said he could make money by selling off the parts but doesn’t intend to do that any time soon.

“I don’t have time to mess with it. I didn’t buy to sell, I bought to keep and wait and see what the price was. People collect stamps, and they don’t necessarily buy them to collect and sell. They buy them and keep them.”

His fascination with the cars started with a 1947 Cadillac convertible. “God I wish I had kept that one,” he says, adding that the cars “were the best that America produced.”

“Lincoln may think they were the best with the Lincoln Packard, but Cadillac has been our best car for a long time.”