Editorial

It’s always laudable when a city looks for ways to make its residents

safer. But a proposed crime-eviction program in Costa Mesa goes so far

that there is very little reason to applaud.

The city’s Police Department has been drawing up the crime-eviction

program, similar to one already employed in Buena Park. It would require

landlords to evict tenants arrested for drug- or gang-related activities.

In Buena Park, police begin the process by notifying landlords when a

tenant is arrested. Then a follow-up letter is sent ordering the landlord

to evict the tenant and any cotenants, even if the cotenants aren’t

arrested for a crime.

Since implementing the law in 1999, Buena Park has used it 128 times.

But the city is now under fire. A landlord has filed a lawsuit contending

the law is unconstitutional because it infringes on the landlord’s free

speech, freedom of association and procedural due process.

And who can argue with some of those points? Shouldn’t landlords be

able to rent an apartment to whomever they choose?

But that’s not the real terror of this law. Anyone can be arrested on

suspicion of having committed a crime, but the United States was created

on the basis that people are innocent until proved guilty. This law

clearly seems to turn that important tenet upside-down: People can be

punished without being guilty.

Seeing Buena Park’s predicament, Costa Mesa wants its law to be more

lawsuit-proof. Its proposed ordinance still is based on someone’s arrest,

but it then would require the city attorney’s office to review the matter

before a violation notice is sent to a landlord, who has 30 days to evict

the tenant or file an appeal to the city.

But those changes don’t come near to making this law fair. And aside

from the problem of punishing people who are not yet proved guilty, there

is the issue of freedom of association. If a landlord wants to rent to a

convicted murderer, that’s the landlord’s prerogative. Just because the

law -- and much of society -- looks down on criminals doesn’t mean

everyone should be forced to. After all, if everyone abided such a law,

where would the criminals live? The streets?

A city cannot be blamed for wanting to be safer, but there are other

ways to go about it. With this type of law, a landlord would be

handcuffed and forced to not only serve as the bad guy in evicting his

tenant, but would also have to lose out on rent checks until he could

find a new tenant.

What type of sense does any of this make? Landlords should retain the

right to rent to whomever they want, even if the list of his apartment

tenants mirrors that of a rap sheet.