Turning to 2-Word Threat: ‘Guardian Angels’ : Crime: West Hollywood residents say they will bring in outside patrols if drug use and prostitution near bookstore continue.

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 Monday 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. Berkove said he was encouraged by the city’s announcing steps it would take, but insisted that the Guardian Angels would be called if the city moves too slowly.

Some residents have taken a “whatever it takes” attitude to a problem they say is only getting worse.

When West Hollywood property owner Elizabeth Weiss tired of watching male prostitutes and drug dealers perch on the fence behind her lot just off Santa Monica Boulevard, she and her brother installed wrought-iron spikes on the wall, hoping to force the unwanted hawkers to move elsewhere.

But the hustlers who frequent the nighttime alleys and parking lots in the area did not move. Instead, they moved the row of spikes, ripping it from the top of the wall with a heavy chain and a vehicle.

Weiss and other neighbors say such audacious acts show how confident and comfortable the area hustlers are, and they accuse the city of ignoring the more run-down, eastern side of the city.

“Here’s how much the city worries about it: They wanted to put a parking structure on this lot,” Weiss said. “First of all, nobody ever parks here. Second, it would just be used as a giant urinal and whorehouse. It would provide just what these people are looking for in terms of shelter.”

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.

Neighbors say the bookstore, which does one-third of its business in adult materials and remains open 24 hours a day pending appeal, is a magnet for male prostitutes and drug dealers. The area of Santa Monica Boulevard near the bookstore is listed in at least one “gay guide”--a book for traveling gays--as a good pickup spot. The owners of the store, Barry and Karen Mason, say they will appeal the decision and have already filled a sheaf of petitions signed by customers who want the store to stay open.

Though Larkin patronizes the bookstore himself and does not object to the business, he says closing it for part of the night will snuff out one beacon that attracts cruisers and prostitutes.

“Most of the cruising is done by out-of-town people,” Larkin said. “If you come in and throw flags up with barriers and a closed bookstore, these people will get the message.”

Larkin and other residents said they have heard the city make promises to crack down in the area before, and promised to resort to outside help if the city is too slow to respond.

Sheriff’s Capt. Burgess said neighbors of the La Jolla Street area are not the only city residents with hustling, prostitution and drug dealing problems in their neighborhoods--just the noisiest. She said some east side residents are not realistic in their demands to clean up a problem that is decades old. She said some of their suggestions would even violate people’s constitutional rights just to clear the area of undesirable elements.

“The residents must fully understand that we will only arrest people for violating the law. We have found arresting people for loitering to be unconstitutional, but that is what some residents want,” Burgess said.