No Trespassing on Orcutt Hill

Orcutt - September 2nd, 2011

An area known to Santa Maria and Orcutt residents as “Orcutt Hill” (typically accessed from the end of Stubblefield Rd.) has seen an increase in law enforcement presence in recent months due to complaints from private property owners. 

The Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Office has received complaints from the property owners of the Orcutt Hill area in recent months due to trespassing by hikers and mountain bikers. Over the years, trespassers have created biking and hiking trails throughout the area which threaten the safety of livestock, as well as damage the vegetation, causing unnatural erosion.

Incidents which have brought the issue to the forefront of the property owners include the cutting of cross fencing, which caused the escape of livestock and a serious injury to a mountain biker who required a helicopter evacuation.

Destruction of no-trespass signs and fencing has also called attention to the situation.  Erosion and damaged caused by bike trails pose a hazard to livestock and unregulated access has caused problems for oil field workers and vehicles in the area. 

For years, property owners have replaced fencing, maintained no trespassing signs that have been torn down, and tried to maintain the area.  However, due to continued abuse of the land as well as increased liability concerns, property owners have requested the Sheriff’s Department enforce trespassing laws.


California Penal Code Section 602.8. and all other applicable laws will be strictly enforced.  602.8(a) PC reads: Any person who without the written permission of the landowner, the owner's agent, or the person in lawful possession of the land, willfully enters any lands under cultivation or enclosed by fence, belonging to, or occupied by, another, or who willfully enters upon uncultivated or unenclosed lands where signs forbidding trespass are displayed at intervals not less than three to the mile along all exterior boundaries and at all roads and trails entering the lands, is guilty of a public offense.

   (b) Any person convicted of a violation of subdivision (a) shall be punished as follows:

   (1) A first offense is an infraction punishable by a fine of seventy-five dollars ($75).

   (2) A second offense on the same land or any contiguous land of the same landowner, without the permission of the landowner, the landowner's agent, or the person in lawful possession of the land, is an infraction punishable by a fine of two hundred fifty dollars

($250).

   (3) A third or subsequent offense on the same land or any contiguous land of the same landowner, without the permission of the landowner, the landowner's agent, or the person in lawful possession of the land, is a misdemeanor.

For more information regarding news related issues
please contact Drew Sugars, Public Information Officer.

Business Hours: (805) 681-4100
EMAIL:pio@sbsheriff.org