EDITORIAL:

Mayor Eric Bever has taken a bold step in his still-early days in the post.

Residents and officials complain incessantly about largely-Latino immigrants — some legal, others illegal, no doubt — loitering in commercial areas, looking for jobs.

It doesn’t look good, critics say.

Crime goes up.

Consumers are deterred from shopping at the locations where would-be laborers congregate.

The 7-Eleven at Placentia Avenue and Victoria Street is the current hub of day laborer activity in the city, and the most outspoken critics say that the laborers sometimes yell, drink and urinate in public.

So Bever does a bit of research and learns that the city of Orange has implemented strategies to fix similar problems.

Among those strategies: a day labor center where would-be laborers go to get work.

Furthermore, they would have to prove legal immigration status before they could benefit from the services offered by the center.

In other words, the center would help legal immigrants looking for work but would discourage illegal immigrants.

“The community is tired of it, and my goal is to give our police force and our attorney the tools they need to get the upper hand on the issue,” Bever says. “I think what Orange has done is an unqualified success.”

So do we.

This is not a reform or return-to-reason issue.

It’s common sense. A win-win.

And the city should come together — and that means all factions, from one end of the spectrum to the other — to make a day labor center a reality.