City Steps In to Help Evict Drug Dealers

Landlord Hal Samith said he didn’t know the home he rented out on Cantara Street in Reseda had become a drop-in spot for drug addicts. Samith’s tenant, an elderly man, seemed like a responsible renter.

But that was before Samith got the call from the Los Angeles city attorney’s office notifying him that three people, including his tenant, had been arrested on suspicion of illegal drug activity.

Not long after, the city attorney began eviction proceedings and the man moved out. The intervention by the city attorney is the result of a pilot program that allows city prosecutors to start an eviction process against tenants who engage in or permit drug use or trafficking.

In its first six months, the city’s new Narcotics Eviction Team handled 196 eviction cases. Ninety of those cases, resulting in about 150 people being evicted, were in the Valley, officials said Thursday.

What gives the team its teeth is a state law that took effect Jan. 1. The law created a three-year pilot program that gives many prosecutors in Southern California the power to start the eviction process.

Giving prosecutors that tool addresses the reality of the streets--where many landlords are intimidated by tenants involved in illegal drug activity, police said.

“A lot of property owners are afraid, and I can’t blame them,” said Lt. Stan Embry of the LAPD’s Narcotics Abatement Unit. “The nature of the crime is, if you’ve got drugs, you’ve got gangs and you’ve got guns.”

The backbone of the Narcotics Eviction Team is the state law written by prosecutors in City Atty. James Hahn’s office.

In many cases, property owners who fear retaliation from tenants quickly turn over eviction responsibility to the city attorney’s office, said Hahn, standing outside the Van Nuys office of the Apartment Assn. of San Fernando Valley/Ventura County.

There are “no excuses” for not evicting a drug dealer, Hahn said. “If you are unwilling to do it, the city attorney will do it.”

However, if a landlord is contacted and fails to act, prosecutors can move ahead with eviction and list the owner as a defendant, said Deputy City Atty. Asha Greenberg.

Hahn, who is running for mayor, acknowledged that many tenants who are arrested and jailed may return to their former neighborhoods or continue selling drugs in other parts of town.

“They get out too soon,” he said. “So we’ve got to educate property owners to check out their tenants.”

The problem of drug dealers returning to criminal activity was studied by the Milwaukee Police Department in 1993 and 1994, Greenberg said. After 138 people were evicted from their apartments because of drug activity, 9.4% left town, 17.4% continued drug activity, 4.3% could not be found and 68.8% did not appear to be engaged in drug activity, the study found.

Trevor Grimm, general counsel for the Apartment Assn. of Greater Los Angeles, said the eviction unit backs up landlords who are reluctant to face drug dealers in court.

Because the LAPD assists with surveillance, search warrants and arrests, owners don’t have to bear the burden of evidence--a task many property owners cannot or are afraid to handle. A civil court process, which can take months, can be bypassed with the city’s eviction unit, said Robert Scholnick, an attorney for property owners.

Some apartment buildings were blatant centers of drug crimes.

For three years, police and neighbors complained about some drug-dealing tenants in a building at 991 E. 33rd St. Since April 1996, the LAPD made 16 arrests there, recovering 192 grams of rock cocaine, a scale and a police scanner set on the LAPD’s Newton Division frequency. Because the owners did not address chronic problems cited by the city, a receiver was appointed who began eviction proceedings. In September, the problem tenants left the building and three units, frequented by squatters and trespassers, were boarded up by the receiver.

In addition to Los Angeles, the county’s Southeast, Los Cerritos and Long Beach judicial districts are also in the eviction pilot program.