Opinion Split on Fall of the Blythe Street Barricade : Panorama City: The roadblock came down 2 weeks ago in a region notorious for drug deals. Some residents say area has had a new beginning.

Traffic flows freely now through the intersection of Blythe Street and Willis Avenue, impeded only briefly by a bright new stop sign.

Two weeks after the city removed a concrete barricade at the corner of one of the San Fernando Valley’s most notorious drug-dealing spots, opinions vary widely on whether anything else has changed for those who live on the Panorama City street.

“It’s the same to us,” said 17-year-old Pirate, member of a gang that sells cocaine and other drugs on Blythe Street. “Just more customers. . . . More money for us.”

“Before, clients were scared to come in because of the barricade,” said Danny Graciano, known on the street as Chuy. “Now, they can come in both ways.”

But Roger Nelson, who owns two apartment buildings on the street, says removal of the barricade has meant a new beginning for residents who have lived in fear of gang violence for years.

“The street looks more like a neighborhood now than a war zone,” Nelson said. “The children are starting to play in the park again. The sense of terror is dissipating. It’s very encouraging.”

Nelson, who heads an organization for property owners on the street, said other owners are pleased that the barricade has been removed.

The barricade has generated a wide array of opinions on its usefulness for more than two years. It was erected in 1987 to help police arrest motorists who purchased drugs from the Blythe Street Dukes, a gang that dominates the street, with members selling drugs from posts along the sidewalk.

For nearly 18 months during this period, a Los Angeles police anti-drug task force targeted the street and made more than 500 arrests. But in 1989, when the force was disbanded, the barricade was left behind and, in 1990, at least two deaths were attributed to it. One teen-ager died when he and three friends made a wrong turn onto the street and were fired upon while fleeing gang members who had surrounded the car near the barricade.

Gang members also stoned cars trying to escape through the street’s only exit, and some motorists were robbed and beaten.

At a community meeting in January, police argued that the barricade had outlived its usefulness. Instead of helping police, it had become a nuisance, used by gang members to avoid arrest and to prey on residents and lost motorists.

But about half of the residents who attended the meeting organized by the office of City Councilman Ernani Bernardi were opposed to the barrier’s removal, arguing that it had helped decrease drug traffic in the area. Without the barricade, the street might return to what it was before: a place with a steady stream of cars carrying drug buyers, a place where gangs shot and were shot at, endangering innocent people. Even gang members predicted more drive-by shootings.

Now that the barrier is gone--removed after a unanimous City Council vote last month--police say they have better access to the street. Patrol cars can get in and out easily, and undercover raids can be conducted without the pall of danger that existed when there was only one way for back-up officers to enter the street.

Senior Lead Officer Chuck Leber said gang members do not congregate in the middle of the block as much as they did before. Often, they can be found on nearby Brimfield Avenue, a cul-de-sac that offers the same type of protection as the barricade did, he said.

“The word on the street by the gang members is that Blythe Street is too hot,” Leber said. “Their activity has dissipated because of the high police presence.”

Although police declined to comment on specifics, they say they are working on new plans to tackle crime on Blythe Street now that the barricade is down.

“The plan we’re implementing is right on target and right on schedule,” Leber said. “We’re documenting the evidence we need in order to proceed against the problem narcotics dealers up there.”

Agents with the FBI have also turned their attention to Blythe Street. “The FBI is working in conjunction with our CRASH unit,” the Police Department’s anti-gang unit, Leber said. The agents are “doing an evaluation of all the different gangs in Van Nuys” and determining which they might be able to successfully prosecute on federal charges such as conspiracy or racketeering.

FBI spokesman John Hoos would not comment specifically on the agents’ work on Blythe Street, but he said 11 were in the Valley as part of the attorney general’s plan to reassign hundreds of agents from counterespionage work to helping local police. The agents have been in the Valley for about three weeks.

Sitting in a postal truck covered with the graffiti of the Blythe Street gang, Gloria Padilla, a U. S. Postal Service mail carrier, said she has seen a vast increase in the number of police cars on the street.

“I feel safer now,” she said.

Padilla was never harmed while on the street, but her truck was vandalized once and covered with graffiti.

Laura Martinez, who lives on the street, said there are fewer gang members hanging out near her apartment since the barricade came down.

But not all Blythe residents believe that removal of the barrier has brought a change for the better.

Stella Vega, who lives in an apartment on the corner of Willis and Blythe, said the place had turned into a zoo.

“To me, it’s gotten worse with increased traffic,” she said. “Cars pass by here, and they’re screeching. . . . The police, when they first removed it, they were giving tickets like crazy. Now you really don’t see them around here.”

Since the barricade’s removal, there have been at least three drive-by shootings on the street, gang members say. Although no one has been hurt, they fear that one day someone will be.

“Now that it’s open, a lot of guys want to get us back,” Chuy said recently, and gang members may not be their only victims.

“What has always been my main concern since the barricade came out is the kids,” Pirate said. “They’re not in this. It’s us. They’re just trying to grow up.”

With the barricade down, gang members scrutinize suspicious cars that may be carrying rival gang members, sometimes telling children playing on the street to go inside if it seems that violence is about to erupt. They’re also leery of unfamiliar customers who may be part of a police operation.

“We know all our clients. Our clients have been coming here for years,” Chuy said, watching as a man he identified as a client drove through the intersection of Blythe and Willis after stopping down the street.

Even with the added attention and danger on the street, gang members doubt that enforcement efforts will be successful.

Although officials will not comment on the strategies, gang members say they think that they know what law enforcement officials might have in mind for them.

“I think their plan is to do it one by one, instead of in groups,” Pirate said. Officials seem to be looking specifically for major dealers.

When FBI agents questioned members of the gang earlier this month, they asked the Dukes if they could get them 20 kilos of cocaine, gang members said.

“I guess he thought we were stupid or something, and we were going to really tell them,” Pirate said.