United They Stand : Festival Celebrates Huntington Beach Neighborhood’s Resolve to Fight Crime

The people of Huntington Beach’s Commodore Circle, a run-down, overcrowded cul-de-sac beset with crime, held a festival Saturday to celebrate a growing sense of community and to issue a warning: They are fed up with drug dealing and crime and intend to reclaim their street.

The Commodore Community Festival featured children, balloons, mariachi bands and women handing out paper plates of taquitos and guacamole.

Festival organizers say the mostly poor Latino and Vietnamese families who live in the 20 four-unit apartments have decided that they must act themselves to clean up their neighborhood.

“The people who reside here are a part of Huntington Beach, and we need to get together as a team to work toward the goals of prosperity,” said Arturo Vasquez, 19, a festival organizer who has lived on Commodore Circle with his parents and two sisters for 8 years. “The drug dealers who used be here are starting to move out of the neighborhood because they are beginning to feel the heat.”

Organizers say the festival also marks a new relationship of trust between the city and residents.

While residents ate and danced, more than a dozen representatives from city and county social service agencies handed out literature and answered questions.

“The city always identified this as a problem area but for the wrong reasons,” said Danielle Madison, the city’s social services coordinator. “This is an effort to bring a sense of community awareness and let people know what’s available to them in this city. It also lets us know that it is no longer the people who live here who are causing problems.”

But even as the music blared, there was a reminder that one day’s festivities will not erase chronically blighted conditions in the neighborhood. Huntington Beach police took advantage of the presence of one of the landlords and cited him for several housing code violations.

Police said Martin Settles, who owns a building at 7630 Commodore Circle, had, among other things, failed to provide heat and hot water to his tenants since Thanksgiving. Officer Bob Sutherland said tenants had also complained that Settles began charging $50 a month for parking after he agreed to the Police Department’s request that he enclose the garages. Sutherland said some of the garages had been rented for parking to non-tenants, making it difficult for police to enforce laws if the garages are being misused.

Settles conceded that his building is probably in violation of some housing codes but that the problems stemmed from renovations he is making.

“I’ve stuccoed the outside of the building, put on a new roof, new kitchens and I’m doing the bathrooms,” he said. “They caught me in the middle of this, but I am working as fast and as hard as I can to get hot water back to people.”

Settles also defended his decision to begin charging extra for garage space, saying tenants used the garages “as bathrooms, drinking places and just a place to congregate.”

But even as he stuck the citation into his pocket, Settles said he too was moved by the spirit of the festival. “I think this is going to help. It gives these people a feeling of acceptance, and they really need that.”

Sutherland said that although some residents still distrust police and fear retaliation by drug dealers, more and more have begun calling police with information. He said the department has provided a special number for anonymous calls.

He said he is also encouraged by the turnout at community meetings and by the recommendations of a special community task force.

The task force initiated a program to issue identification cards to all residents so that police can more easily spot outsiders and drug dealers. Residents have imposed a self-enforced 10 p.m. curfew for the same reason.

“The spirit is growing here,” Vasquez said.