Pasadena Plans Drug-Free Zones Near Schools

In August, when Pasadena Board of Directors member Chris Holden tried to find a relative’s house in Elizabeth, N.J., he found instead a bustling, drug-dealing avenue.

“It was rather narrow, cars were stopping, and people were sticking out of the cars dealing drugs,” Holden recalled.

Guiding his own car carefully through the street, Holden, accompanied by his brother, Reggie, avoided eye contact with the dealers, hoping to stay out of trouble.

Then suddenly, in another block, the dealers disappeared.

“There was nothing,” Holden said. “It was kids out riding bicycles and I’m seeing these signs saying, ‘Drug-Free Zone.’ ”

The Pasadena director had stumbled upon a tactic touted as the cornerstone of New Jersey’s 2-year-old, anti-drug effort. The white signs, with blue letters spelling out “Drug-Free Zone,” mark off areas 1,000 feet around schoolyards. Individuals caught dealing drugs inside these zones face mandatory prison sentences of three to five years.

With added officers on regular patrols in the zones, New Jersey reported 6,509 arrests last year under the new law and 4,700 during the first half of this year. Dealers know the state is serious and respect the boundaries, New Jersey officials say. As a result, they say, the streets surrounding schools are washed clean of curbside dealers.

Holden, elected in March on an anti-crime platform, returned to Pasadena, determined to start drug-free zones here using a similar California law. During the fall, he advanced the idea through a board subcommittee that included Director Bill Paparian and Mayor William Thomson, also known for his anti-drug stance.

It was Thomson who last week publicly unveiled the plan for the creation of drug- free zones, as part of an anti-drug and alcohol-abuse package. The Board of Directors on Tuesday formally endorsed the concept of declaring drug-free zones in Pasadena. When the board adopts specific anti-drug legislation next year, Pasadena could become only the second city in California to declare such zones, city officials said.

But successful drug-free zones involve more than just the posting of signs, Holden said Tuesday. Cooperation also must come from residents of drug-infested neighborhoods, police officers who make arrests there and prosecutors who file charges.

Thomson agreed, saying: “Signs by themselves will be helpful, but they are not going to win the day.”

Pasadena officials will enlist the help of the Pasadena Unified School District, the city attorney and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office in devising its drug-free zones.

The idea for such zones originated four years ago with revisions to the U.S. Health and Safety Code, which called for a one-year minimum prison term for those convicted of selling drugs, such as heroin, marijuana, hashish, cocaine, PCP (also known as “angel dust”) or LSD within 100 feet of playgrounds and video arcades and within 1,000 feet of schools.

The law’s effectiveness was hampered, however, by the quantities of drugs required to be seized before the added charges could be filed. As a result, 29 states enacted their own legislation.

California’s year-old version applies only to convictions for the sale of rock cocaine, also known as crack, and only for sales that occur within 1,000 feet of a schoolyard.

Among states that have enacted such legislation, New Jersey has led the way in aggressively using drug-free zones to fight dealers. The New Jersey zones were created as part of a broad, statewide anti-drug effort devised in 1987 by Gov. Thomas Kean and former State Atty. Gen. Corey Edwards.

A statewide action plan that accompanied the legislation requires all New Jersey cities to conduct regular police patrols in their drug-free zones. In Elizabeth, that meant city officials had to add seven more officers to the narcotics squad, said Elizabeth Police Director Joseph Brennan.

Once arrests were made in the zones and convicted dealers were sent to prison, other dealers realized the state was serious and began to avoid the zones, Brennan said. However, it took some time.

“It’s a deterrent, but it’s a long-term effect,” he said of the signs.

Much of New Jersey’s success with its drug-free zones can be attributed to the state’s unique, hierarchical political system, said State Assistant Atty. Gen. Ron Susswein. The governor appoints the state attorney general and state prosecutors who oversee local police chiefs.

In other areas across the nation, using school zones as an anti-drug tactic is not nearly as organized or aggressive, Susswein said. Neighboring New York state counted only 10 prosecutions last year under its drug-free zone laws, he said. Meanwhile, only a few cities, such as Omaha, Neb., and a few states, such as Maryland, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, have gone to the trouble of actually posting drug- free zone signs to accompany their laws.

Alameda, in Northern California, is the only city in the state to post such signs.

Reasoning that most streets in the small city of 75,000 would fall within 1,000 feet of a schoolyard, the council in November, 1988, simply posted the drug-free zone signs at the city’s four entry routes.

“It’s definitely symbolic,” said Cheryl Mitchell Wade, an assistant to the city manager. “We haven’t added any additional resources.”

In Los Angeles, signs are not posted. But periodic high-profile, citywide sweeps by undercover law-enforcement officers are undertaken, in which both federal and state laws are used against those arrested. In October, 1988, one such operation netted 83 arrests. Another 177 people were arrested last June.

But generally, the use of drug- free zone laws is left up to law- enforcement agencies handling the cases. John Perlstein, who oversees the filing of cases in downtown Los Angeles for the county district attorney’s office, estimates that 1%, or 130, of the estimated 13,000 felony drug cases filed each year downtown include added penalties for dealing near schoolyards.

In the Pasadena office, where about 2,000 felony narcotics cases are filed annually, head filing deputy Jim Simpson could recall using the new California law only once.

But Simpson said police agencies fail to request the added penalties when they send cases to the district attorney for prosecution.

“I see an (arrest) address, and I don’t know if it’s 1,000 feet within a schoolyard,” Simpson said.

The problem, said Perlstein, is that no coherent program exists to take advantage of the drug-free zone laws on the books.

“We’re pretty fragmented in Los Angeles County,” he said. “We have 70 different police departments with separate prosecuting jurisdictions.”

Those problems will be addressed as Pasadena works out the details of its proposal with the school district, the Police Department and the district attorney’s office, Holden said.

He added: “My feeling is that in a couple of years from now, you’ll find more and more cities involved in it.”