With communities like Boyle Heights left in the dark, California moves to crack down on copper wire dealers and sellers

A California bill aims to curb illicit copper wire sales amid a surge in thefts that have blacked out streetlights in Boyle Heights and other parts of Los Angeles.

A state Assembly committee on Tuesday endorsed the bill, known as Assembly Bill 476, on a unanimous 18-0 vote. The bill was referred to the Assembly Public Safety Committee with a hearing scheduled for April 29.

This piece of legislation — introduced by Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez — seeks to crack down on copper wire theft by enhancing reporting requirements for junk dealers and recyclers, establishing a licensing requirement for copper sellers, modernizing restrictions on the possession of scrap metal from critical public infrastructure and revising penalties to better reflect the true cost to the public.

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“These measures will increase transparency, discourage illicit sales and ensure accountability throughout the recycling and resale process,” according to an analysis of the bill.

Gonzalez, in the analysis, said the “consequences of these thefts are far-reaching.”

He noted a “dramatic increase” in streetlight outages in his district, which includes parts of downtown, as well as Boyle Heights, Westlake, Koreatown, Pico-Union and Chinatown.

The city’s Bureau of Street Lighting reported about 45,000 service requests in 2024, many of which were due to theft or vandalism, according to Gonzalez.

In 2024, Boyle Heights ranked second out of the city’s 114 neighborhoods for streetlight outage service requests, with 1,907 reports, according to MyLA311 Streetlight Service Request data.

And, in “one particularly egregious case,” Gonzalez said 38,000 feet — nearly seven miles — of copper was stolen from the Sixth Street Bridge. This resulted in repair costs of approximately $2.5 million, despite the stolen metal’s street value being a mere $11,000, he said.

“These crimes go beyond financial losses; they create unsafe conditions for residents and businesses by leaving streets, neighborhoods and business corridors in complete darkness,” Gonzalez said.

Former L.A. Councilmember Kevin de León announces an anti-copper-wire theft effort by the city last y ear.

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Andrew Lopez

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Boyle Heights Beat

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Early last year, former Councilmember Kevin de León, along with Councilmember Traci Park, launched a heavy metal task force in collaboration with the L.A. Police Department and the city’s Bureau of Street Lighting. The task force has led to dozens of arrests and thousands of pounds of recovered copper wire.

Supporters of the bill include the League of California Cities, the Electric Vehicle Charging Association, Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator, as well as the cities of Paramount, Norwalk and La Mirada.

The Recycled Materials Association is opposing the bill, noting that requiring “many of the honest and hardworking retail suppliers that collect and sell recycled material to obtain an expensive and time-consuming contractor’s license would either force them out of business or give them no option other than to sell to black market recyclers,” according to the bill’s analysis.