ANAHEIM : Street Parking Banned in Drug-Plagued Area

Despite protests from some apartment building owners, the City Council this week unanimously approved a one-year ban of all street parking in a neighborhood near Pondersosa Park that is plagued by blatant drug dealing.

The parking ban would be unprecedented in Anaheim and is designed to make it more difficult for drugs to be sold in the open, police said.

“This is an aggressive solution,” Mayor Tom Daly said. “It’s about cleaning up neighborhoods.”

The ban will result in the loss of 380 public parking spaces on the street. Police estimate that if residents cleaned out their garages so they could park in them, the area would acquire about 280 private parking spaces. Police are exploring other ways to create additional spaces.

The neighborhood, a five-street area north of Orangewood Avenue and east of Haster Street, has 99 apartment buildings and about 5,000 residents.

Several building owners, worried about losing tenants who will have no place to park their cars, asked the council to consider less severe action such as parking permits.

“This is quite a shock,” said building owner Mike Gordon. “No other solutions were discussed, and if they were brought up they were quickly shot down.”

Another landlord, Alan Dauger, said, “I’m in favor of the idea with the hope that the city will help us with the cost of creating more parking spaces, whether it be pouring concrete or demolishing walls.”

Police Sgt. Jack Parra said that about 85% of the building owners favored the ban. He predicted that owners and residents against it would soon feel differently.

“The community needs to understand the big picture and visualize in six months what this community could look like,” Parra said.

Similar bans have succeeded in reducing crime by up to 70% in neighborhoods in Garden Grove and Westminster, according to a report to the council.

The ban will begin in May in a phased manner, giving residents time to adjust, police said.