Sepulveda Drug Barricade Expansion Planned

Little opposition surfaced Thursday at a public meeting to discuss temporarily barricading a second Sepulveda neighborhood to keep out drive-by drug buyers, and police officials said they will close off the area Jan. 18.

Only about a dozen people attended the meeting, however, which was held at the Devonshire police station, located more than 10 miles from the drug-plagued area where many residents cannot afford cars.

Capt. Mark D. Stevens said the meeting was held at the station instead of a local church or school because it was more convenient for police.

Residents were notified of the meeting last week when police passed out about 500 flyers in Spanish and English in the neighborhood, Stevens said.

“This seems like kind of a far way to come, and I was surprised,” said David Widell, a Sepulveda resident and engineer who supports the barricade proposal.

Richard Kunz, a field deputy for Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs, said the meeting was held at the station because “it is a safe place, where residents would be able to speak candidly without fear” of retribution by drug dealers.

Police officials and Wachs want to barricade a two-block section of Orion Avenue with sawhorses at Nordhoff and Parthenia streets that would be removed twice a day to allow 40 buses from the local public school into the area.

The barricades must be approved by the City Council, which is expected to do so because it approved the barricading of the nearby 12-square-block Columbus Avenue neighborhood in November to curtail narcotics traffic there.

Although there is no organized opposition, critics have said the technique will simply push the narcotics trade into neighboring areas, forcing officials to set up an ever-increasing number of roadblocks.

Police officials in November conceded that drug traffic had increased in the Orion Avenue area as a result of barricades around the 12-square block Columbus Avenue neighborhood, which is four blocks to the west.

But they said Orion Avenue already had an active drug trade and that closing it would not drive customers into single-family neighborhoods to the north and east because they would be too conspicuous there.

Some apartment owners who attended Thursday’s meeting said they were concerned the barricades would create difficulty in attracting tenants.

“I’m worried there will be vacancies,” said Victor Ellias, who owns 36 townhouses in the neighborhood. “But if the barricades are up for a month or two, maybe the area will get cleaned up and people will want to live here.”

Under the plan, residents of Orion Avenue would still be able to enter the neighborhood from Rayen Street.

The barricades would be removed for 2 1/2-hour periods in the morning and afternoon to allow the 40 buses that pick up and drop off children at Langdon Avenue Elementary School to continue using Orion Avenue.

Apartment owners in the nearby 12-square-block Columbus Avenue area had proposed replacing sawhorses with large planters as roadblocks. But Kunz said Thursday that city public works officials have rejected the planter proposal because of concerns about liability and maintenance.

Kunz said public works officials are considering an alternative proposal to use removable concrete-filled steel posts as barricades instead of the sawhorses.