Flyers Advertise 24-Hour Drug Sales Outside Mini-Mall : Crime: Dealers’ business is booming at Towne Center, where some merchants are quitting because of the sales.

As the cars stream into the parking lot of the Towne Center mini-mall in Hollywood, “Ray” and the other drug dealers keep a wary eye out for customers and cops.

Surveying the evening flurry of activity, Ray acknowledges that business is booming. Authorities attribute his success, and that of perhaps two dozen other local dealers, to a marketing tool usually reserved for legitimate firms: printed flyers tacked up on walls and placed under windshield wipers.

“Drugs for Sale,” the flyers say, listing the mini-mall’s address. “In Front of Laundromat. 24 Hrs. Best Quality. Just Drive Thru.”

In recent years, Los Angeles dealers have become increasingly brazen in pushing their wares. But police and City Councilman Michael Woo say this is the first time they have encountered dealers brash enough to advertise.

Capt. Rick Dinse of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Hollywood Division said it is possible that a disgruntled merchant or neighbor circulated the flyers to call attention to the burgeoning drug problem. But Woo, merchants and some police officers say it is most likely that dealers had them printed up after they were forced out of an area east of Towne Center so their customers would know their new location.

Ray says that regardless of who is responsible, the dealers appreciate it. “They’re all over the place,” he said.

Police and merchants said that the 300-yard-long mini-mall along Santa Monica Boulevard has, in just a few months, become one of the city’s liveliest drug spots.

“It’s developed into quite a hotbed of activity,” said Dinse. “Drugs are readily accessible.”

Ray, wearing a pair of chinos and an untucked blue polo shirt, furtively discussed his trade with a reporter from his perch atop a low concrete wall that runs the length of the mall, between Tamarind and Van Ness avenues. A private security guard stood at attention no more than 30 feet away.

Every once in awhile, Ray would spot a customer. Once, after he announced that he was about to make a deal, he and another man approached each other and grasped hands in a loose, prolonged handshake. The exchange of crack cocaine for money was barely noticeable.

Meanwhile, other dealers shuffled up and down the sidewalk in front of the stores. After stopping motorists and pedestrians to ask for a cigarette, they would look them over and then offer crack and other drugs.

Efforts to conceal drug transactions are minimal. And as the flyers promise, the dealers are out there working, night and day.

“They do more business than me,” one shop owner complained. She said she put her clothing store up for sale two weeks ago because constant drug activity right outside her store has ruined business.

“These people are very brazen and will stop at nothing,” said Elaine Saldivar, 64, a member of a nearby neighborhood crime-watch group. “You’re talking about real lowlifes.”

Other crimes appear to be on the rise since the dealers moved in. In January, Dinse said, there were at least 11 robberies, 12 car burglaries and 19 assaults in the immediate area.

Recently, Woo and Los Angeles Police Department officers held a news conference at the mini-mall to announce that they were fighting back. They circulated their own flyers, declaring, “Drugs for Sale? Go to Jail! We will not allow your selfish, destructive behavior to destroy this neighborhood. You Are Being Watched!!!”

Drug buyers will be arrested as well as dealers, and their cars could be confiscated, police said. But many merchants are afraid to put the flyers in their windows for fear of retaliation. And they say drug buyers have begun arriving in taxis or on foot.

Police said that they are trying to crack down on the dealers but that their efforts have been hampered by a lack of resources. Lt. Gary Hall of the Police Department’s West Bureau narcotics squad said his officers have arrested more than 30 dealers in the course of sporadic patrols of the area in the last two weeks.

“They bust people damn near every day,” Ray says ruefully. “Put their hands over their heads and everything.”