Neighborhood Feels Drugs’ Side Effects : Crime: Tension has risen along with the illegal activity in the Utica Avenue area of Huntington Beach.

Carol Van Asten stands in front of the private elementary school she owns on Utica Avenue, talking about the area’s drug-dealing problem, which police say has festered in the past year.

Suddenly she stops, and stares out into the street.

“Look at this one here,” she says, nodding toward a young man strolling down the sidewalk and past a planter on the edge of the Carden School parking lot. “I hear they hide (drugs) in that planter. I’ve never found anything, but that’s what I’ve heard.” Her voice is fraught with anxiety and anticipation.

The pedestrian passes and continues down the street; Van Asten returns to the conversation.

The scene is emblematic of the tension--and almost paranoid suspicion--apparent among school officials and area residents who are confounded and scared by the reputed siege of drug activity they say has overrun their neighborhood.

They say they are concerned the problem may threaten the safety of 300 children attending the school, and that the area’s growing reputation as a drug-trade center will affect their property values.

Some Anglo neighbors believe the drug problem has been caused, in part, by the influx of Latinos into the area over the past decade. Latino activists say this fear and militant watchdog efforts seem to have hardened racial stereotyping among many non-Latino residents.

The result, these activists say, has created ethnic tensions around the area surrounding the culturally diverse, $2,500-per-year school.

Huntington Beach police identify the area, a short span of Utica Avenue extending west of Beach Boulevard, barely a half-mile from City Hall, as one of three major drug-selling spots in the city.

And now that stepped-up police efforts have begun to stem drug trafficking in the Oak View and Commodore areas, police and other city officials are now focusing more intensely on combatting the Utica Avenue problem, Police Lt. Ed McErlain said.

Since February, police have arrested more than 40 suspects in the area on drug-related charges, including 13 during an Aug. 2 undercover “sting” operation, McErlain said.

Police have long known that cocaine and marijuana are sold along Utica Avenue, but only within the last month, crack has also turned up in the neighborhood, Police Chief Ron Lowenberg said.

“So far, we’ve only been able to make a short-term impact on the drug activity in the area,” McErlain said.

On many evenings and weekends, drug sellers transform the school’s parking lot into an emporium for illegal drug activity, police say.

Van Asten said her school’s enrollment the past year was down about 25 students, which she blames on the reported drug activity and other elements she believes has sullied the neighborhood’s reputation.

But in their zealous concern about the problem, some Anglo property owners in the area have sweepingly branded the dealers as undocumented Mexican immigrants, in what Latino activists say has galvanized discriminatory attitudes against Latinos in general.

Although police acknowledge many of those arrested in the area on drug-related charges have been Latino, they note the suspects represent an array of different nationalities, as does the neighborhood’s population on the whole.

Arturo Vasquez, a Latino activist working with police and residents to stem crime and address other problems in the Oak View area, said he believes such ethnic stereotyping only worsens neighborhood fear and strife.

“Usually, people are just ignorant when they come out and make such strong statements as that,” Vasquez said. “Many of the people they think to be Mexican, of course, are Latinos of all different backgrounds. And the fact is, such a hostile type of approach doesn’t solve any of the problems. It only victimizes the community they’re trying to help.”

In the Oak View area, he notes, the city has made considerable inroads toward dealing with the multifaceted problems because police, city officials and residents are working together not only to fight crime, but to bridge communication gaps within the neighborhood.

Vasquez and Lowenberg were instrumental in convincing the City Council in June to implement an Oak View task-force program, which includes building a police substation in the area, expanding a local community center and improving outreach efforts with neighborhood residents.

Lowenberg last week met with City Administrator Michael T. Uberuaga and concerned property owners to discuss introducing similar measures, though on a smaller scale, to the Utica Avenue area, McErlain said. A formal plan for the area will be devised within the next six weeks, he said.

As a first step, Lowenberg will be directing various city department heads to address a broad range of issues in the neighborhood, such as enforcing building codes and easing overcrowding in the two notorious apartment complexes, McErlain said.

Community meetings are also being planned in the neighborhood, and some other outreach efforts may be implemented, he said.

“Chief Lowenberg’s plan is to approach this from a total-involvement standpoint, including the city and the people living there,” McErlain said.