In its latest effort to crack down on the homeless, the Santa Barbara City Council is considering an ordinance that would make it illegal for people to store their belongings on a public street for more than four hours.

The proposed law follows a similar effort last week that sought to put a halt to shopping carts in public spaces.

“Unattended or stored personal property in certain public spaces threatens the health and safety of residents and visitors because it interferes with the safe passage of pedestrians and the disabled in the public right-of way, attracts vermin seeking food or refuge, or in extreme cases can be used as a cover for explosive devices or bio-agents,” said attorney John Doimas in a staff report.

The city's three-member ordinance committee will tackle the proposal at Tuesday's noon meeting at City Hall. The committee is made up of Kristen Sneddon, Randy Rowse and Oscar Gutierrez.

Santa Barbara is on a mission to revitalize its iconic State Street, which has suffered in recent years from a drop in retail sales. In an attempt to reduce the number of empty retail storefronts in Santa Barbara, officials are looking at multiple paths to make downtown more inviting, including making it more difficult for homeless people to store their belongings on public streets.

Santa Barbara's homeless live in nooks and crannies all over town, inside tents along Highway 101 and next to bridges. After some recent encampment sweeps, some homeless people have adopted Laguna Street near the Highway 101 offramp as a place to live and store their plethora of personal belongings.

The proposed ordinance would prohibit storage of unattended personal property along public streets, sidewalks, plazas, parking lots, parks, beaches, and public buildings.

The city defines storage as being in the same location for more than four hours. Violators would receive written notices, and if the belongings have not been removed, the city would have the power to impound them.

It would also ban the storage of excessive amounts of personal property – whether attended to or not — if it is more than would could fit in a 4-cubic-foot container

The city will only dispose of the personal property immediately if it is perishable, is considered contraband, or constitutes an immediate threat to the public health or safety.

People do not have to present identification to recover impounded personal property, only clearly identify the details. The proposed ordinance provides that no storage fee shall be charged for any impounded personal property.

Bicycles, walkers, wheelchairs, strollers, and scooters are excluded from the proposed ordinance.

— Noozhawk staff writer Joshua Molina can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) . Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.