Landlords Want Planters, Not Guard Post, in Drug Barricade

Apartment owners in a Sepulveda neighborhood that was barricaded last month to curtail drive-by drug sales have rejected--at least for the time being--a police proposal to erect a guard station to admit only residents and their guests.

The proposal was shelved after some of the 40 owners balked at paying a private security firm about $30,000 annually to screen people entering the 12-square-block neighborhood, said Mila Casper, a spokeswoman for the landlords.

Instead, the owners have agreed to rely on police patrols and to take the less expensive step of installing $2,000 worth of planters to replace the sawhorse barricades set up last month at all but one of the entrances, Casper said Tuesday. The owners will reconsider the guard station if the planters fail to keep drug buyers out of the area, she said.

Los Angeles police officials who proposed the guard station shortly after barricading the area Nov. 7 said Tuesday they support the owners’ decision to try the less expensive measure.

“Ideally, you would have had a guard at the gate keeping track of who goes in and out, and taking down license numbers,” Police Cmdr. Chet Spencer said. “But we’re not going to abandon the neighborhood. We’re going to have quite a police presence there--I guarantee you that.”

Constant police patrols are essential or drug activity will increase regardless of the barricades, said city officials in Opa-Locka, Fla., a Miami suburb where police two years ago barricaded a five-square-block neighborhood.

Opa-Locka Mayor Robert Ingram said Tuesday that drug dealers returned to the neighborhood, known as the triangle , when police failed to closely monitor the area. Recently, the city’s police began a program to drive the narcotics trade from the area, arresting more than 200 drug buyers and sellers last weekend, he said.

“Drug users aren’t the most logical people,” Ingram said. “If they think they can get away with it, they’ll go anywhere--even into a closed area--to buy drugs. But if the police do their job, the barricades have an excellent impact.”

Under the Sepulveda plan, which must be approved by the Los Angeles Board of Public Works, vehicles would be able to enter the neighborhood only at the corner of Sepulveda Boulevard and Rayen Street, which will be patrolled by police. Round planters, six feet in diameter, about three feet tall and filled with shrubs, would be placed at each of the four entrances to the area now blocked by sawhorse barricades. Apartment managers living nearby would water the shrubs, Casper said.

“The current barricades, while they have scared away drug dealers, have created an atmosphere of a police state,” said Richard Kunz, a deputy for Councilman Joel Wachs, who represents the area.

At the request of the landlords concerned about attracting tenants, police have removed a sign designating the area a “Narcotics Enforcement Zone” at Sepulveda Boulevard and Rayen Street, Kunz said. The sign will be replaced by one that says “Security Community,” he said.