Anti-Drug Traffic Barriers in Streets May Be Removed : Law enforcement: Residents complain that the blockades have outlived their usefulness and are being used to hinder police chases.

Controversial barricades that have blocked streets for five years in a neighborhood plagued by drug dealers may soon be removed, a Los Angeles police captain said Wednesday.

Capt. Vance Proctor, who commands the LAPD’s Devonshire Division, said there was a “very good” chance he would approve removal of three of the four barricades in the area near Sepulveda Boulevard and Nordhoff Street to see what effect the change would have on illegal drug sales in the neighborhood.

“In principle I’d agree to a six-month trial period,” Proctor said. “It’s one of the last places in the city to my knowledge where they are still up.”

Proctor said that he held informal talks with Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon about six months ago regarding the barriers but that so far no plans have been formalized. He added that removing the barriers depends on his discussing the issue first with Alarcon.

“It’s controversial,” Proctor said. “Parts of the community want them in, and other parts want them out.”

The barricades were placed in the neighborhood in 1989 when residents paid $6,900 to block access to four local streets as a way to curb drive-by drug sales.

The barricades worked, police and residents said, because motorists could no longer reach the dealers by simply getting off the nearby San Diego Freeway to purchase drugs. With the barricades, they were forced to maneuver through several streets, some of which come to dead ends.

Some residents of the area credit the barriers with keeping drive-by drug sales out of the neighborhood.

“There are a lot of drug sales right off Nordhoff,” said Rod Fink, vice president of the North Hills Community Coordinating Council and program manager of a residential home in the barricaded neighborhood for wards of the court.

He said he fears that if the barricades are removed drug dealers “are going to come right in because they have more area to run.”

Others said that local dealers began using the barriers to their advantage by simply hopping over them and dashing inside apartment buildings when they were being pursued by officers in patrol cars, which were unable to maneuver around the barricades.

Harry Coleman, president of the neighborhood’s coordinating council, supported the removal.

“It’s our feeling that the barricades no longer serve the purpose they were originally intended for,” Coleman said. “The barricades are the focal point of the drug deal. They just ride up to the barricades and make the deal. It was a joke.”

Added Coleman: “Nobody wants to live behind barricades. It’s like a concentration camp.”

LAPD Officer Les Lovatt, who often patrols the area, agreed that the neighborhood would be better off without the barricades.

“I think it’s an acceptable thing to do at this point,” he said. “The answer is not barricades--it’s putting the dealers in jail.”

Sinking property values provide another incentive to clear the streets. Many prospective renters and buyers have balked at the prospect of living in a neighborhood cut off by barricades.

Despite community support for the removal of the barriers, however, Proctor had previously maintained that the drug traffic would return if drug buyers had an unimpeded path from the freeway.

Times staff writer Timothy Williams contributed to this story.