The Issue: Using Abatement Laws to Stop Drug Trade : AGAINST: GIDEON KANNER

The city of Los Angeles was among the first to use a 1972 state anti-drug statute to target crack houses or drug-infested apartment buildings as public nuisances. In February, the city used the abatement law against a Van Nuys mini-mall where cocaine is sold. A Superior Court judge told the mall owner to hire security guards and install a tall fence and high-powered lights and told a doughnut shop to close between midnight and 4 a.m. or hire separate guards. If the measures don’t eliminate drug dealing, the mini-mall could be boarded up for up to a year

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Q. Why do you oppose narcotics abatement lawsuits?

A. Two reasons. First, what the city says sounds suspiciously like the end justifies the means. I suppose it might be even more effective if we had mass sweeps by the police wielding truncheons and cracking skulls.

But we don’t do that in this country, nor . . . do we sue innocent people and conscript them into hazardous police duty and tell them to . . . get rid of drug dealers. In other words, the city’s position is absurd.

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Q. The city says all they are seeking is a partnership between private property owners and the police because the police are overmatched by crime. Doesn’t that seem reasonable?

A. No. There are a great many things in this world that are difficult or expensive and . . . we either have to find the money or . . . reallocate the burden and the pain . . . in a rational and fair way.

The city attorney is . . . sitting there on the 18th floor of City Hall, surrounded by guards and cops, and he is telling some merchant in a crummy part of the San Fernando Valley to go into his parking lot and confront drug dealers and put himself in deadly peril . . . because the city hasn’t been able to.

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Q. The city attorney says that the abatement of public nuisances, such as houses of prostitution, is well-established in law and that apartment houses where tenants deal drugs or mini-malls used to deal drugs should be treated similarly. Do you disagree?

A. Of course. The red-light abatement procedure contemplates, in the first instance, a situation where the defendant is the person who is actually engaging in an illegal activity. I suppose that it can be stretched to include the person who is knowingly aiding and abetting, if you will, the illegal activity, such as the landlord who rents to somebody who’s running a whorehouse on the premises.

When you are talking about a residential apartment building, you have an entirely different situation. It is utterly absurd to suggest that the landlords in these cases are in any way in cahoots or aiding and abetting the dealer.

In fact, we know that in a vast majority of these cases, the poor landlords are on the phone calling the cops, pleading with them to come for help.

So now along comes the city attorney who says, ‘The established law enforcement apparatus . . . has been an utter, total, abject and miserable failure.’

Now we’re going to pick on . . . the landlord. He is going to go out there and do what the police were not able to. That is nonsense.

Speaking of the law, of course, there have been cases that indicate that a property owner simply is not required to engage in this kind of a police action. The court has said that society’s primary mechanism for preventing criminal activity is . . . a professional constabulary.

These property owners are paying taxes . . . so the government will provide them a basic security. So the city . . . has the nerve, the temerity, the sheer chutzpah , to turn on these people and say, ‘Sure, you’ve paid your proper share of taxes . . . but, No. 1, you’re not going to get the protection, and No. 2, go out and pay again.’

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Q. The city argues that in some cases, landlords foster illegalities by renting to drug dealers or, in the case of the doughnut shop owner, operating around the clock and installing video games that encourage gang members to hang out between deals. Shouldn’t such owners be brought in line?

A. A person who is knowingly facilitating and abetting the illegal activity is one thing. But the fact that Mr. Kim chooses to operate a business . . . around the clock, I cannot imagine how anyone can say there’s anything wrong with that.

If somebody wants to go and watch video games at midnight, that’s his business. If Mr. Hahn wants to propose an ordinance that would ban the viewing of video games after certain hours, let him try it.

But, in this case, the merchant is not implicated. In fact, I repeat, he is the victim. He wants help from his government and he doesn’t get it.

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Q. But the basis for that lawsuit is that the way he’s operating is a nuisance that is depriving others of the enjoyment of their property, right?

A. If we have a store owner who makes a lot of noise and puts out garbage that smells or he burns trash and emits smoke, those are classic examples of a nuisance that impacts a neighboring area. But, in this case, Mr. Kim is the one who is saying, ‘Look! There are bad people here! Come help!’ And the police either can’t help or can’t come or both.

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Q. But what if landlords know their tenants sell drugs or commit other crimes and do nothing?

A. Are those landlords really knowingly doing this? Sometimes it’s not easy to tell. In the first place . . . we are dealing here with the poor, unfortunate people who are on the lowest rungs of society. And they don’t walk around with gold Visas and credit records.

Even so, even though they may be poor, most are not drug users or drug peddlers. They are entitled to fair treatment. The landlord . . . is not in the business of investigation.

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Q. So, even if we can coerce property owners to help the police deal with the problem, that coercion violates things more dear than the health and safety and peace of mind of the victims of the nuisance?

A. It is a distinction between ends and means. We all agree on the ends. We want to achieve some reasonable peace and quiet. We don’t want to see drug dealers and users roaming the streets.

The question is, what means are we going to use? If the present system is collapsing, which is really what’s happening here . . . then the question needs to be addressed forthrightly as to what additional resources society has to bring to bear on this. What laws need to be changed? There’s any number of other reasonable alternatives that . . . should be explored.

But the reason I am so critical is that these . . . laws . . . are being perverted. Laws that were written to deal with violators of the law are being brought to bear, not only on people who are not violators, but who are victims.

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Q. But doesn’t the city have a legitimate interest in seeing that what occurs on private property doesn’t impinge on others?

A. Absolutely! Total agreement. But, you see, . . . it’s all put in these neutral, impersonal terms.

We’ve eliminated from the picture the landlords who stay on the phone every night, pleading with the cops to come and help. Landlords have rights. And they have a right to be protected. They have, if nothing else, . . . a right not to be cheated out of their tax money.