Evictions Put Drug Dealers on the Street

Landlord Hal Samith said he did not 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.

Soon, 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 commit or permit drug use or trafficking.

In its first six months, the city’s new Narcotics Eviction Team handled 196 eviction cases.

What gives the team its teeth is a state law that took effect Jan. 1, creating a 3-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.

“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 K. Hahn’s office.

In many cases, property owners who are fearful of 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 to remove 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, agreed 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.”

Some apartment buildings were blatant centers of drug crimes.

For three years, police and neighbors complained about 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.

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