L.A. Puts More Bite in Trespassing Law : Crime: Ordinance targets drug dealing, other activities in apartment complex common areas.

Trespassers beware. As of Thursday, uninvited visitors in Los Angeles apartment buildings can be arrested on the spot and sentenced to six months in jail and fined as much as $1,000.

The tough new city ordinance, designed to make it harder for drug dealers, gang members and prostitutes to set up shop in common areas of apartment complexes, supersedes a state law that police and prosecutors dismissed as generally toothless.

The trespassing ordinance has more bite, said Deputy City Atty. Mary Clare Molidor, who helped write it. “This is a much more straightforward way to keep individuals off private property,” she said.

Authorities drafted the law with apartments in mind, although it could also be used for homes and commercial buildings not generally open to the public. Portions of the law also cover private property that is open to the public, such as gas stations or markets.

Molidor said the law was carefully written--in some parts using language from U.S. Supreme Court decisions--so that it would be strictly constitutional. So far it has not drawn objections from civil libertarians.

Under the state law, police or property owners can order people who are not tenants or tenants’ guests to leave private property posted with “No Trespassing” signs. If the trespassers leave, they are not subject to prosecution.

But, Molidor said, unwelcome visitors often return as soon as police leave.

“If this is where their clientele knows them to do business, on this nice, spacious green lawn on a nice street corner, it’s very difficult to exclude them,” she said.

The law responds to problems that apartment owners were having with non-tenants using their stairwells, hallways and pool areas to sell drugs out of the view of police.

Under the new law, apartment and other property owners who have posted “No Trespassing” signs can write a letter giving police blanket authority to arrest intruders for the subsequent 12 months. The letter allows police to act swiftly, without placing the building owner or manager in jeopardy.

That is reassuring to the owners and managers of buildings in crime-plagued areas of the city.

“It helps us . . . fight against these people coming through our building, the undesirables we don’t want here,” said Wendy Anderson, the manager of an apartment building on Saticoy Street in Winnetka that has been used as an escape route for drug dealers fleeing police.

Now, she said, drug dealers selling their goods in the upper hallway or rear stairway of her building merely laugh when she tells them to leave. After the new law takes effect, she will put up “No Trespassing” signs, file a letter authorizing police action and call for help when she sees non-tenants hanging around the public areas of her building.

Anderson was among a group of west San Fernando Valley building owners and managers who sought help with such problems from Stephanie Tisdale, a Los Angeles Police Department senior lead officer in the area. She, in turn, contacted Molidor, who is assigned to the anti-drug FALCON unit in the city attorney’s office.

Tisdale said the state penal code section dealing with trespassing was ineffective against drug dealers. “If we couldn’t find any dope on them, there was nothing we could do except ask them to leave,” she said.

“This particular . . . section of the law is going to be a godsend to the police officer, absolutely.”

Molidor and another prosecutor assigned to the FALCON unit, in consultation with police, are writing the guidelines for enforcing the new law.

She said high-crime buildings or areas will be targeted and that no sweeping roundups of trespassers are planned. In addition, she said, violators will probably be warned at first about the new law’s potentially swift consequences. Finally, the law can only be enforced in buildings where owners have posted new, city-approved signs that read “This Property Closed to the Public. No Entry Without Permission.”

Violations of the new law can be prosecuted as misdemeanors or infractions, similar to traffic violations. There is no comparable county ordinance, although Long Beach has a similar measure.

“We want to work in conjunction with the Police Department, so everyone is on the same wavelength,” Molidor said.

The law also allows a building owner to notify tenants’ guests that they are no longer welcome if they have been convicted of a drug offense, prostitution, vandalism, weapons possession, loitering or other crimes committed on the property. If they return in the next six months, they are subject to immediate arrest.

Under the state law, the only way of keeping troublemaking guests away was to evict the person who invited them there. Such eviction attempts usually failed, Molidor said.

Another section of the new law helps business owners rid their premises of loiterers or anyone bothering customers. For example, someone pressuring gas station customers for money to clean their windshields can be asked to leave for 24 hours. The loiterer can be arrested for trespassing if he refuses to leave.

The new ordinance was sponsored by City Councilwoman Joy Picus, who represents the West Valley, at the request of Molidor and Tisdale.

“I believe that people want the police to deal firmly with the problems that are out there,” Picus said. “People feel that these tools will be wisely used and . . . I think it’s time we looked after the law-abiding citizen and give them the opportunity to feel safe.”