CANYON LAKE - A proposed ordinance favored by the City Council would prohibit sex offenders from being within 500 feet of parks, beaches and bus stops.

The ordinance would further restrict how close a sex offender could live - and visit - to these public places. The council members, who backed the ordinance during their initial consideration, are expected to approve it Oct. 17, which would make it law 30 days later.

Jessica's Law, an initiative passed by state voters last November, restricted paroled sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of schools and parks. But the state law, said Canyon Lake City Councilman John Zaitz, is an umbrella measure that allows for greater restrictions by municipalities.

Zaitz, who proposed Canyon Lake's ordinance, is seeking to prevent sex offenders not just from living near a school or park, but from visiting such sites. The state law, he noted, doesn't forbid sex offenders from visiting places within that protected area.

"So what's the point? He can spend all day there, but he just can't live there," Zaitz said of a sex offender.

Others share his concern, said Sgt. Todd Kelly of the Canyon Lake Police Department.

"Some people … didn't like the fact that a sex offender could live in Sun City, but could come to Canyon Lake to hang out at a park where kids are present," Kelly said.

Canyon Lake, which has 4.6 square miles, is home to between six and eight sex offenders, Kelly said. About 11,000 people live in the gated city, which has no public schools, officials said.

To some extent, Canyon Lake's ordinance addresses Zaitz's concern - and presumably would make it tougher for sex offenders to approach public places or places frequented by children, including day care centers. Zaitz's ordinance is the first of its kind countywide, City Manager Lori Moss said.

But critics are not sure how enforceable the provisions are, considering some of the law's exceptions. They include:

• the right to make single trips to and from a destination that crosses near a protected location;

• the right to be present in public parks for the purpose of exercising the constitutional rights of free expression and assembly;

• the right to travel to and from religious services;

• the ability to be within 500 feet of a protected location if it encompasses the sex offenders' lawful place of business.

"It seems as if the city has taken into account freedom of travel, freedom of speech and freedom of religion, but the devil's always in the details," said Hector Villagra, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Orange County office. "We'll have to see how something like this will be enforced. It sounds like it'd be incredibly difficult to enforce."

Kelly said officers know of the sex offenders within Canyon Lake and are on the lookout for loitering or other suspicious behavior.

With global positioning services -which electronically track some sex offenders - "we can know where they are at different times," Zaitz said.

- Contact staff writer Brian Eckhouse at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2626, or beckhouse@californian.com.