Giving Them Notice : Hawthorne: Some apartments have become havens for drug dealers. A new ordinance requires landlords to get rid of the problems or face consequences.

The temperature in her one-bedroom Hawthorne apartment was above 90 degrees, and she had no fan or air conditioner.

Andrea Amanse considered stepping outside into the cool courtyard of her Doty Avenue complex, but she hesitated. She was afraid of being accosted by drug dealers who might be in the mood for a fight.

“I only come outside when it’s late and it’s quiet,” said Amanse, cradling her 8-month-old son. “There’s too much traffic out here. If I come outside too early, people stop me and ask me if I want to buy (drugs) or am selling.”

For Amanse, like many residents of South Bay apartment buildings, the living these days is far from easy. Drug dealing is rampant. And for law-abiding residents, that often means an abundance of strangers, noise--and, sometimes, violence.

Traditionally, the only recourse has been to send in the police. But in Hawthorne, where law enforcers are swamped by complaints from apartment complexes, city officials are trying another approach.

Under an ordinance adopted unanimously by the City Council last week, the city will look to landlords to clear their buildings of drug activity.

“This ordinance will make apartment owners a lot more aware of who they’re renting to,” Councilman Larry Guidi said. If apartment owners carefully screen their tenants and are mindful of security problems in the city, drug dealers will have a harder time establishing a foothold in Hawthorne, he said.

According to the new ordinance, patterned after similar legislation in Long Beach and Oakland, the city manager will send a letter to landlords of apartment buildings where police suspect drug dealing is taking place. Documents substantiating the allegation--such as police reports and complaints from neighbors--will be attached to the letter.

After receiving the notice from the city, the landlord will have three choices: get the tenant to move out voluntarily, evict the tenant or meet with the city manager with evidence that the allegation of drug dealing is wrong.

Failure to heed the notice will be considered a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail or a $1,000 fine, Assistant City Atty. Glen Shishido said.

Apartment managers and landlords appear pleased with the new law, saying it will give them more leverage in evicting tenants.

Karen Aksenchuk, property supervisor for Kenmar Properties, the management company that handles Amanse’s building, said her company screens potential tenants but does not always get accurate information.

She cited cases where previous tenants gave the resident managers false names and social security numbers that showed excellent credit. When problems arose, management could not evict the tenants, she said.

“(The ordinance) will give us another way of evicting problem tenants,” Aksenchuk said. “By law it’s hard to get anyone evicted with the exception of non-payment of rent.”

Many Hawthorne tenants, meanwhile, say they are relieved that they will no longer bear the entire burden of reporting alleged drug dealers to police.

“It should be the owner’s responsibility to take care of drug problems--they don’t live there,” said Undra Williams, who rents a one-bedroom apartment in the 3900 block of Imperial Highway, in Hawthorne’s Moneta Gardens area.

Williams said it could be dangerous for tenants to report their neighbors’ drug activities to the police because their lives could be threatened.

But Yvonne Godfrey, educational director for the Apartment Assn. of Greater Los Angeles, said the new city ordinance will only be effective if the police, courts and residents cooperate closely.

“Until residents get up in arms and say, ‘I’m not going to allow my neighbors to deal drugs,’ what can the landlord do?” Godfrey said.

Some question the need for ordinances like Hawthorne’s. Rod Field, housing law coordinator for the Legal Aid Foundation, said the measure is redundant. The state already has similar codes against landlords with drug activities in their buildings, he said.

The most effective means of control, Field said, is for citizens to “take it in their own hands and file small claims actions against the building owners for maintaining a nuisance.”

Few, however, dispute that drug dealing in apartment buildings is posing a problem. Hawthorne police statistics show that far more drug trafficking occurs in apartments than in single-family residences.

For instance, there have been 54 drug-related arrests in apartment buildings in the Moneta Gardens area within the past 12 months, police say. That compares with two arrests across town in Holly Glen, a section of Hawthorne composed of single-family homes.

“I can think of about 20 problem buildings off the top of my head,” said Hawthorne Police Sgt. Rick Shindle, pointing out that police receive frequent complaints from these buildings--in some cases about 15 a night.

Shindle said drug dealers consider apartment buildings a safe haven.

“The design of apartment buildings attracts dealers,” he said. “They stay secluded from police and conduct business.”

The new ordinance will be effective as another tool to combat drugs in Hawthorne, Shindle said, but unless it is uniformly observed, it might simply have the effect of displacing dealers from one building to another.

“It’s not necessarily going to cut the crime rate or stop narcotics dealings,” he said.