Council to consider restricting where sex offenders live

The Huntington Beach City Council on Monday will consider whether to have city staff research ways to restrict where registered sex offenders can live.

Councilman Joe Carchio is proposing that the city follow the lead of Long Beach’s government, which is also weighing options on the issue.

The result would likely be a new ordinance with restrictions to keep sex offenders from living near daycare facilities or in multiple units of multi-family housing complexes, Carchio wrote in a report to the council.

“If an ordinance is drafted and adopted [in Long Beach], I believe we should evaluate it and determine if such a regulation could positively impact our community,” he wrote.

The council will also consider whether to make anyone advertising the sale of dogs or cats in the city show they have a business license to do so. The license number would have to be displayed prominently in the advertisement.

The licensing ordinance is all that remains of Councilman Keith Bohr’s original proposal to require cats and dogs be spayed or neutered and given tracking microchips. After attempts at a compromise failed last month, council members voted to look at the business licensing provision on its own.