Drug-Plagued Complex Put on Notice : Van Nuys: A judge uses an obscure state law to force the cleanup of a mini-mall beset by cocaine dealing.

Declaring that rampant crack cocaine dealing had turned a Van Nuys mini-mall into a public nuisance, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge Wednesday ordered the mall’s landlords and the proprietor of a doughnut store to rid the site of drugs or risk forfeiting the property.

Under an obscure state law that shifts the burden of ensuring public safety from police patrols to private property owners, Judge Raymond Cardenas ruled that the landlords must prominently post signs warning drug dealers to stay away. He also ordered the mini-mall to be surrounded by high-powered lights and a guarded security fence.

In addition, Cardenas demanded that the proprietor of the 24-hour doughnut store close up shop from midnight to 4 a.m., or hire a separate security guard during those hours to curb the drug trade at the shop that anchors the mini-mall at the southwest corner of Roscoe and Sepulveda boulevards. Prosecutors said crack dealers loiter in the store while waiting for business.

The ruling marked the first time the Los Angeles city attorney’s office has successfully used the 7-year-old law to take aim at a shopping complex beset by drug dealing. It also emphasized prosecutors’ intent to bring the law to bear on commercial property--and in the San Fernando Valley.

In an era of diminishing government resources, said Deputy City Atty. Asha Saund Greenberg, the law is a “recognition of the fact that traditional law enforcement efforts just are not enough.” She added, “It’s not such a novel idea that people who own property bear some responsibility for what is going on there.”

The 1986 law allows a judge to take creative steps to eliminate a “public nuisance,” defined as a place used for the open and systematic sale of drugs. It is based on the principle long used to stop property owners from running houses of prostitution or gambling halls.

The Los Angeles city attorney’s office has used the law with regularity to sweep drug dealers from apartment houses and other residential property.

Last month, Los Angeles prosecutors signaled that commercial property would also be targeted, convincing Superior Court Judge Diane Wayne that ongoing drug dealing had turned a West Pico Boulevard restaurant into a nuisance. She ordered the restaurant owner to chase drug dealers away.

At the mini-mall, police made 126 arrests from June, 1991, to June, 1992, according to a legal brief filed by the city attorney’s office. Most tenants already have fled the mini-mall, where teen-agers make gang signs and hold whispered conversations with motorists in the parking lot.

Cardenas said Wednesday he was reluctant to issue orders that might affect small-business owners “working hard to make a living.” But he called the drug problem at the mini-mall serious and said, “something must be done about it.”

He told the mini-mall’s landlords, Maurice and Mojdeh Mehrban, to post signs, put up a 5-foot-high wrought iron fence and install bright night lights. The signs, at least 3 feet by 3 feet, will announce in English and Spanish that drug sales are forbidden and police are watching.

Cardenas directed the Mehrbans to hire security guards for parking lot patrols from 2 to 10 p.m. daily.

The judge gave Jae Joo Kim, the proprietor of the 24-hour Donut King, a choice: either hire a separate security guard to stay in the store from midnight to 4 a.m., or close for those hours.

Greenberg stressed that Kim bears no direct responsibility for drug activity at the mini-mall, and faces no criminal charges. But the store, which has three video games tucked into a corner, provides a “hospitable environment” for suspected drug dealers, Greenberg said.

Kim’s attorney, Tony Kim, told Cardenas that closing the doughnut store at night will probably mean the loss of significant revenue. And after the hearing, Tony Kim said Jae Joo Kim may elect yet another option.

“I think,” Tony Kim said, “that it may be better off for him to pack up and leave.”