Streets Barricaded in 2 Locations in Attempt to Cut Flow of Drugs

Police street barricades, successful in stemming the flow of drugs through some neighborhoods near downtown Los Angeles, are getting a tryout in two Westside communities.

Los Angeles police officials, with some fanfare, announced Wednesday that they have barricaded one of two entrances to the Mar Vista Gardens housing project, a 600-plus apartment complex notorious for violence spawned by area drug sales and gang warfare.

At a news conference at the site, police said they have closed off Marionwood Drive, the major thoroughfare through the project, at Braddock Drive, creating a cul-de-sac. Motorists will be able to enter the massive complex only from Inglewood Boulevard, said Capt. Patrick Froehle, commanding officer of the Pacific Division.

Two weeks ago, barricades were set up in the Wilshire District to restrict access to a neighborhood just off Hauser Boulevard.

Police say the barricades, set up to restrict access to Hauser from Adams Boulevard south to Jefferson Boulevard, appear to have cut rampant drive-by drug sales that have plagued the area for several years.

“We have been fighting the problem for more than two years and it hasn’t helped,” LAPD Sgt. Tom Johnson said. “The barricades seem to be slowing the dope dealers somewhat, because the buyers are afraid of entering the area. They read the signs and say, ‘We’ve got to get out of here.’ ”

Police say they began using the barricades last October, in the Pico-Union area near downtown Los Angeles. In recent months, they have expanded the program to include an area in the Newton Division in South-Central Los Angeles, and in the police department’s Van Nuys and Devonshire divisions.

Police say they have had some unexpected, but welcome, results.

“I don’t think anybody was surprised that drive-by shootings and narcotics trafficking went down significantly,” LAPD spokesman Lt. Fred Nixon said.

“The wonderful surprise was that 150 to 200 more kids attended school at one place, Jefferson High School, immediately after the barricades went up. We feel it was that feeling of safeness the kids had, that they could walk the streets without being accosted,” Nixon said.

Mar Vista Gardens has been the site of several gang-related slayings recently, including one last month, and authorities are worried that gang activity is off to a record-breaking start this year. Several gangs are headquartered inside the projects, just west of the San Diego Freeway and north of the Marina Freeway, and rival gangs are nearby, police say.

“We have had an increase of crime in the area and there is a substantial narcotics and gang problem, and this is an effort on the part of police and the community to combat those two problems,” Froehle said. He said police spent the last month garnering the support of local Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, city housing officials and neighbors before approving use of the barricades.

“We hope the barricades will separate the (drug) buyers from the sellers,” Froehle said, “and also reduce the amount of gang violence by deterring individuals from entering the areas when they realize they’ll have to make a U-turn and drive back out the way they came.”

At the open entrance to Mar Vista Gardens, advisories will be posted warning that it is the only way in and out of the complex, that only residents and their guests will be allowed in, and that there will be an increased police presence at the entrance and throughout the complex at any given time, Froehle said.

Salvatore Grammatico, president of the Del Rey Homeowners and Neighbors Assn., said he supports the idea but thinks it will have little impact on the seven gangs he says operate and sell drugs out of Mar Vista Gardens.

“It’s sort of like a Band-Aid approach to the whole problem,” Grammatico said Wednesday. “How effective could something like that be when you have such a longstanding feud between major gangs?”

Froehle and other police officials said they have no immediate plans to set up barricades in other Westside high-crime areas. “But it’s a possibility,” Froehle said. “Obviously, if a program is successful, it will be repeated in other locations.”