Oxnard Turns Up the Heat on Purveyors of Sex, Drugs

It was approaching 8 p.m. when the bushes in front of a poorly lit apartment building on Aleric Street in Oxnard began to rustle. In a flash, the spotlight of a passing squad car froze a fleeing figure.

Oxnard Police Officer Jim Struck drew his breath in relief and amazement. “It’s a kid,” he gasped.

On a thoroughfare notorious for illegal activities from dumping garbage to buying sex and drugs, children have been less common after dark than dope dealers, prostitutes and pimps. In fact, residents say they never saw children in the neighborhood even during the day.

Now, after two months of increased police surveillance in South Oxnard, “parents feel it’s safer,” said Struck, who coordinates police beats there. So children now play outdoors after dark in the 131-acre Southwinds neighborhood that is bordered by the Ventura County Flood Control Channel on the west, Pleasant Valley Road on the north, Saviers Road on the east and Hueneme Road on the south.

City officials hope that measures adopted Tuesday by Oxnard’s City Council will make the widely known prostitution and drug trafficking hub even more hospitable for residents.

Council Embraces Plan

City Council members unanimously adopted a plan to maintain increased police protection and stepped-up waste disposal and inspections for building code violations. The plan, drafted by a task force of officials from six city departments, also promises daily visits by a city refuse inspector, publicity about housing rehabilitation loans a1852055649Southwinds Park on Clara and Aleric streets.

City officials stress that the steps are only interim measures designed to stem the neighborhood’s deterioration until Oxnard can launch an ambitious redevelopment plan that has been stymied for two years by a funding dispute with the county.

They also called for staff reports on increasing police foot patrols and beefing up building codes so that dilapidated apartments could not pass from one slumlord to another without being upgraded.

“You turn on the lights,” Aleric Street landlord Dennis Waldman told City Council members, “and the cockroaches run away.”

Eventually, Southwinds’ Neighborhood Council hopes to change the name of the street altogether in an effort to thwart what Struck refers to as “the criminal element.”

“People come from all over the county to Aleric Street,” he explains. “What if they can’t find it? What if they see kids playing on lawns, houses nicely painted and lawns well kept? They’ll think they’re in the wrong place and go elsewhere.”

“The goal,” he said, “is to make this a neighborhood just like any other.”

And so it would appear to be. At first blush, Southwinds could be mistaken for any Southern California beach community. The shores of Ormond Beach lie less than a mile away. Cars jostle for precious street parking. Shallow lawns lead to boxy, stucco apartment buildings dating to the early 1960s.

On closer inspection, however, the neighborhood that city officials consider blighted becomes a study in dubious distinctions.

A 1983 report by the Oxnard Planning Commission called it “one of the least desirable areas of the city.” It claims the highest population density in the city--49.3 people per acre, as well as the lowest number of single-family dwellings. For the last few years, police say, the neighborhood has been the most dangerous in the city.

“Block by block,” said Oxnard Police Sgt. Jamie Skeeters, commander of a seven-member field tactical unit that has been patrolling the area four days a week, “we have more problems in that area than in any other area in the city.”

Beer cans litter the lawns. Many of the cars turn out to be abandoned. Fraying blankets take the place of drapery on big picture windows. Steel grates cover doorways. And a foul odor emanates from beachfront sewage treatment and industrial plants.

Unsightly Scene

In the alley that runs between Aleric Street and Hueneme Road, abandoned sofas and appliances lay next to brimming and haphazardly strewn dumpsters. Men drink beer in carports, stamping empty cans with their heels. And in the laundry room of an Aleric Street apartment building, human excrement lies in one corner and a popped balloon in another.

“Heroin packaging,” Struck explained. “Hookers do tricks in here, and you usually find hypodermic needles and matches” from drug injections.

On Aleric Street, drugs are so readily available, said apartment manager James M. Cassidy, that “dealers stop in the middle of the street, whistle and wave.” Mothers complain that their children are approached by prostitutes. Older people say they are afraid to walk to their cars. Homeowners fear for their investments.

Maureen Finlay was a single parent struggling to make ends meet when she managed to buy a four-bedroom tract home half of a block north of Aleric Street 16 years ago. The scrimping and saving, she figured, would pay off because she eventually would be able to move into smaller living quarters and live off the profit. Now she has her doubts.

“Two or three of us have decided that we’ll have to retire and continue living here because we can’t expect the kind of return on our property that would allow us to move elsewhere,” said Finley, who also is chairwoman of the Southwinds Neighborhood Council.

Not Always Run Down

City officials are quick to point out that Aleric Street has not always been this way. Shortly after the street was developed by the two men for whom it was named--Al Weston, a former plumber, and Eric Cassirrer, a car salesman--Aleric Street was “a stable, family-oriented neighborhood,” a city report says. Housing directors for the nearby SeaBee Base recommended it to naval families.

In the ‘70s, all that began to change. Owners of single-family dwellings left. In a bar at a shopping center between Perkins Road and J Street on Hueneme Road--then called the Plaza Marina Shopping Center--drugs were sold openly. The parking lot became so full of prostitutes that locals still refer to it as “The Stroll.” Oxnard had become a stop on a sex-for-sale circuit that, police say, moved streetwalkers throughout the state.

By 1980, 91% of the neighborhood’s occupants were renters, according to census figures. Over half had an income well below the city’s median income. Landlords had stopped taking care of their property, a trend that, residents say, continues to a vexing extent today.

“Most of the people who own these apartments just drive through here once a month and pick up the checks,” says Cassidy. “They don’t seem to care whether the neighborhood deteriorates.”

Crime Area Shifts

A series of raids had broken the prostitution ring by the early 1980s. And when the city succeeded in persuading the State Alcoholic Beverage Control Department to revoke the liquor license of the offending bar, police hoped that their problems had been solved. Instead, they found a new, more complicated one: drug trafficking and prostitution had moved a block north to the apartments along Aleric Street.

Police complain suspects would “melt” into alleys, apartments or the bushes of the Southwinds Park, where vandals habitually disabled street lights. By contrast, the days of Plaza Marina did not seem so bad. At least back then, “it was like shooting in a fish bowl,” Struck remembers. Crime had “been spread out over three or four blocks,” he said. Now it has even begun to ooze into nearby Port Hueneme.

In 1985, the city slated Southwinds for redevelopment. The resulting increase in property taxes was supposed to pay for water drainage and sewer improvements and the upgrading of Plaza Marina--now substantially improved under a new owner who has named it Ormond Beach Center. The annual tax also would help fund low-interest home rehabilitation loans, the conversion of troublesome carports to garages and antigraffiti campaigns.

Funds Blocked

Those funds, however, remain off limits as a result of a legal dispute with the county, which stands to lose money under the plan because it would freeze tax revenue flowing to sources other than the city--school districts, the state, the county--at the 1985 level.

“The county finds it unrealistic to assume it can continue its current level of service over the next 30 years without receiving an increase in tax revenue,” said county Chief Administrative Officer Peggy Daniels. City officials say a lawsuit filed by the county in the matter will be heard no sooner than February and will take months to resolve.

In the meantime, a handful of the neighborhood’s property owners have launched a clean-up campaign. Landlords say they have begun to scrutinize tenants more closely. Security gates have been installed and Neighborhood Watch groups have been formed. Southern California Edison has been asked to make street lights brighter.

Then government officials got into the act. Since September, the Police Department’s seven-man Field Tactic Unit has been patrolling the neighborhood. The district attorney’s office agreed to make returning to Aleric Street a violation of parole for repeat offenders arrested there.

Inspections Paying Off

Housing inspectors have seen that 113 of 125 dwellings inspected meet building code. And community information officers began trumpeting the benefits of Lifeline, the telephone company’s cut-rate service for low-income households.

“We’d tell people to call the police, but only one in 12 units had a phone,” Struck said.

Now two of Southwinds’ property owners believe change--and big profits--wait just around the corner. In 1984, Joan and Sharon Gaiser bought several fourplexes in light of a developer’s plans to build a resort that would feature a mock space shuttle at nearby Ormond Beach. By October, when the city announced plans for a marina with housing, shops and a golf course, the sisters-in-law had acquired two apartment buildings for a total of 167 units.

“We felt that it was the only area in Ventura County where you could buy something fairly reasonable and expect some growth,” she says. “This could be a very big harbor. I don’t know whether it will become as big as Marina del Rey but it certainly has a lot of potential.”

But last Sunday night demonstrated how far Southwinds has to go before it becomes just another neighborhood--much less Marina del Rey. An attractive woman in tight white pants sauntered slowly west on Hueneme Road before disappearing into one of the cars that slowly cruise the area. Police earlier had swept the area for prostitutes, and then cracked down on their customers, arresting 39 “johns” over three days. Squad cars swept past each other, shooting beams of lights into dark alleyways, doorways and bushes.

And Finlay fought to remain optimistic.

“Sit back, relax,” she tells her neighbors. “Lock your doors and wait for things to get better.”