Fighting to Take Back Their Area : West Hollywood: Residents say city officials must do more to curb drug dealing and male prostitution off Santa Monica Boulevard.

Unhappy with recent efforts by law enforcement and city of West Hollywood officials to decrease the highly visible problems of drug dealing and male prostitution in the area around La Jolla Street off Santa Monica Boulevard, neighbors are turning up the heat with letters, complaints and even a threat to bring in the Guardian Angels, the self-styled crime fighters.

City officials, who recently arranged for foot patrols by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies and weekend barricades of parking areas frequented by out-of-town cruisers, are responding to the pressure with further attempts to make the area around Circus of Books bookstore inaccessible to drug dealers, prostitutes, and their customers.

After a hastily called meeting with unhappy neighbors last week, Mayor Abbe Land directed city staff this week to put together a comprehensive program of traffic restrictions suggested by residents and designed to discourage cruising. Suggestions include barricading parking lots all night, making an alleyway into a one-way street, placing “no right turn” and “no left turn” signs at some intersections, and changing landscaping to eliminate shadowy trysting areas.

But some neighbors, wary of previous city promises to reduce illegal activity in the area, are still holding out the possibility that the Guardian Angels may be called in to help.

“It should be very embarrassing for this city to admit they can’t handle a crime problem in such a small area. If changes aren’t implemented soon, we (the neighbors) are going to have a show of force. I’ll call the Guardian Angels down,” said Jordan Berkove, who lives at the end of the parking lot on Havenhurst Street, where much of the nighttime vice takes place.

Berkove contacted the Los Angeles chapter of the well-known youth patrol last week after becoming frustrated that sheriff’s foot patrols had done little to discourage late-night drug and sex activity in the alleyway and parking lot behind Circus of Books.

Steve Kirkman, leader of the Los Angeles Guardian Angels chapter, said the group agreed to help if residents organize a community orientation meeting. He said the group would come in and be what he called “a presence,” carrying signs, following prostitutes and teaching residents how to take back the neighborhood.

Sheriff’s Capt. Rachel Burgess of the West Hollywood unit said she “absolutely opposed” bringing in outside groups such as the Guardian Angels, and said such a move would probably cause more problems than it solved.

Berkove and other neighbors have recently flooded West Hollywood city officials with complaints about highly visible drug deals, discarded syringes and people engaged in sex in their front yards.

Resident Tom Larkin, who said previous city proposals to clean up the neighborhood were a “Band-Aid approach,” developed the plan to alter traffic routes to work in conjunction with the closure of Circus of Books between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m., as recently ordered by the city’s Business License Commission.