A car displaying a Take Back Santa Cruz sticker was vandalized

Take Back Santa Cruz members are routinely called "Nazis" and "Fascists" and "Bigots" by critics due to the anti-homeless political stance the group has taken. TBSC calls itself a "public safety" group that is "tough on crime", but they mainly advocate for laws that punish low income and homeless people.

Take Back Santa Cruz members have fought to close local beaches at night and recently they got the city council to outlaw RV parking in Santa Cruz at night.

Take Back Santa Cruz members also fought to keep sleeping illegal in Santa Cruz at night and would not agree to help change the camping law, thereby allowing the most fundamental discrimination against homeless people to perpetuate.

Take Back Santa Cruz has been accused of being a hate group and some anecdotal accounts detail how members have gone beyond anti-homeless politics and have taken to intimidation tactics.

A Santa Cruz Sentinel article in 2012 told the story of a woman who said Take Back Santa Cruz posted photos of her vehicle on their Facebook page and made derogatory comments in emails and group newsletters about her.

A Good Times article in 2013 told the story of Frank Smith. Smith says he was stalked and photographed repeatedly by TBSC members and he claims that TBSC members have photographed and posted photos of the RV in which he lives onto the TBSC webpage. Smith said after this happened a man and a woman accosted him in his vehicle and screamed profanities at him, and told him he had to leave town because they paid a lot of money for their house.

In 2013, Steve Schlicht, who was a member of the City of Santa Cruz's Public Safety Task Force and is the director of "marketing communications" and the webdesigner for Take Back Santa Cruz, posted in the TBSC Facebook group he was "fine with junkies dying somewhere else. Outside the county is fine by me."

There have been other anecdotal stories of people calling themselves Take Back Santa Cruz members who have assaulted people they perceived to be homeless and then telling them to get out of town.

In a 2013 Georgia Perry interviewed Take Back Santa Cruz founder Analicia Cube, who admitted she wished they had called TBSC something different and more positive sounding.

Cube has cleaned up her act a bit in recent years, but she used to use very inflammatory language, and she would publicly harass community members and encourage their harassment by other TBSC members. A 2016 Indybay article "Take Back Santa Cruz leader pulls no punches" details some of Cube's negative behavior when the group attacked a man they thought was a criminal but who was later found to be completely innocent. Cube called him a "POS" (piece of shit) and inflamed a full on attack on him.

The erratic, bullying behavior of its members and the group's discriminatory politics has lead to backlash against Take Back Santa Cruz and wide spread animosity within the community.

Following this recent incident of car vandalism, Take Back Santa Cruz is claiming to be the victim and posted this on their Facebook page:

"We find it ironic and very sad that as a group we speak out consistently against criminal, abusive and bullying behavior in our community and yet by doing so we are often vilified and targeted with hate crimes and speech. This disrespect and hate aimed at concerned citizens and families trying to make a safer community is hypocritical and mean spirited and means we all have to work even harder to make Santa Cruz a better and safer community."