Ventura officers often look for a relative or friend who can care for the drunk until he or she sobers up. The department has no cells for holding drunks, and would rather let them sleep it off in someone's home rather than pay the $120 booking fee to put them in the county jail, Farrar said.

By contrast, only 119 public drunks were arrested in 1992 in Simi Valley, where police see street drunks as more of a "city thing," said Lt. Dick Thomas.

Since that ruling, arrests under Section 647(f) plummeted dramatically in Los Angeles, from 50,000 a year to less than 3,000 a year, said Carlyle Hall, one of [Robert Sundance]'s attorneys. And the Legislature added another section to the Penal Code, allowing police to put public drunks into civil protective custody for 72 hours at a treatment facility.