Tenants Along Boulevard Join Forces to Fight Crime

About 50 Sepulveda Boulevard apartment dwellers on Thursday night formed the first tenant crime-watch group to fight prostitution and drug dealing along the thoroughfare.

Mary Lou Holte, a Sepulveda Boulevard tenant who was mugged and beaten in October, organized the meeting.

“Instead of moving, I’m going to stay right here, and I’m going to watch what goes on around this place,” she said. “People are going to get busted.”

And from the sentiments expressed by others at the meeting at her apartment complex in the 6600 block of Sepulveda, Holte isn’t alone in wanting to get tough on crime.

The crowd clapped and cheered when Holte asked, “We have to do something about our neighborhood. Right?”

Holte, who dubbed the new neighborhood watch group the Town Keepers, said members will inform police and apartment managers when they suspect tenants are dealing drugs or are involved in prostitution, a longtime problem in the area.

Share Information

Apartment managers agreed to share information to better screen out undesirable tenants.

“We have every right to refuse to rent to a person who has been a nuisance at another building,” said Charles Erdell Sr., who manages an 83-unit complex in the 6600 block of Sepulveda. “We are going to try to keep criminals out of our buildings.”

The Los Angeles City Council recently passed a law that makes it easier for landlords to evict tenants suspected of dealing drugs, said Deputy City Atty. Marcia Gonzales, who supervises the city’s narcotic abatement unit. The ordinance makes such activity a public nuisance.

Gonzales said landlords are within their rights to refuse to rent to people based on their references from a past landlord.

Several managers said that crime problems are driving tenants away.

“Pimps were using vacant apartments for prostitution . . . It was scary to just walk past the people hanging out in front,” said Toni Murrow, manager of the 56-unit Sepulveda Terrace Apartments. “If we don’t stand tough now, we are going to lose the buildings up and down this boulevard.”

Police encouraged residents at the meeting to join Apartment Watch, a 4-year-old program designed to teach apartment dwellers to look out for suspicious activity in their complexes.