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Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Ethnic Cleansing? Part 1: No Pot Smokers
Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
Photo courtesy of here.
Guest article by Michael Earl Patton.
One way to change the ethnic composition of Cincinnati is to restrict the housing options for certain groups. At a landlord training seminar held by the Cincinnati Police Department on February 5, the police recommended that landlords do not rent to people who have had any kind of drug conviction. Since this seminar was held to explain the chronic nuisance premises ordinance, which holds landlords civilly and maybe even criminally liable if their property exceeds the quota for police runs, the message was clear: if you rent to someone who has had a drug conviction, even for possession of a marijuana joint, the landlord runs the risk of fees, fines, and even jail.
The chronic nuisance premises ordinance sets quotas for police calls for service for “nuisance activities,” which include such diverse activities as assault, drug possession (including marijuana), prostitution, loud noises, curfew violations, truancy, and kidnapping. Each multi-family dwelling is allowed 3 calls per month and a certain number per year, depending on size. For example, buildings with 2 or 3 apartment units are allowed 6 calls per year. If that number is exceeded the owner is warned that the building is “in danger” of being declared a chronic nuisance and they must develop a plan acceptable to the police to reduce the nuisance calls within 13 days. The quotas are deliberately set so that a certain percentage of landlords will fail every month and every year.
The key is cooperation with the police. If the police determine that the landlord is cooperative they emphasized they would not pursue penalties for the landlord. And the police emphasized not to rent to people with drug convictions (they did state that this was not an order). It was, in fact, almost the only recommendation given in writing to the participants: “advise applicants that if any drug conviction in past terminates the applicant process [sic].” A criminal background check was advised, but conviction for illegal drugs were the only offense that was recommended to be a cause for refusal to rent. Not even sexual offenders were so mentioned.
For whatever reason, African-Americans are convicted much more often than other groups for drug crimes. During her interview posted earlier in the Cincinnati Beacon, councilwoman Leslie Ghiz stated that she did not expect the marijuana ordinance would be used to send people to jail for just holding a joint, but only if one were walking around acting as a dealer (about half-way through the interview). But the 6-month report indicates otherwise—people were arrested and sentenced to jail for an average of 7 grams of marijuana. Were most of the convictees black? Whether they were or not, the CPD is recommending to landlords that they NOT be allowed to rent an apartment anymore in Cincinnati.
The net effect will surely be to change the ethnic composition of Cincinnati. There are other ordinances and policies which appear as if they will have a similar effect, sometimes on African-Americans, and sometimes on lower- and fixed-income people in general. There will be other columns in this series.
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07 Feb 2007 at 07:53 am | #
I was curious so I looked it up. 7 grams is also called a quad or a 1/4th. A joint is about 1/2 a gram. So 7 grams equals about 14 joints. One on-line source suggests it runs between $20-$115 depending on market & quality.
The amount it takes to get high is somewhere between 1/2 gram for good stuff to 3 grams for poor quality stuff.
07 Feb 2007 at 08:57 am | #
"The solution to pollution, is dilution”, or in this case, criminalize certain actitivies of the group you are trying to eliminate or disburse. It happens all the time. I hope Cincinnati opens more homeless shelters, prepare for more panhandlers, and add extra dollars to the social service agencies. They can’t have it both ways.
07 Feb 2007 at 09:00 am | #
The police at the session talked about people who buy cigars and put marijuana inside. They told landlords to be alert to cigar wrappers as a sign of marijuana activity.
I’m not certain how much marijuana is in a joint, and I’m not about to do my own study. An average conviction of 7 grams is low considering that that particular ordinace is used for weights up to 100 grams, at which point a harsher law probably kicks in. Leslie Ghiz spoke of dealers who have just under the limit. If one dealer is caught with, say, 91 grams, then one would need to have arrested 14 smokers who had just 1 gram to get the 7 grams average. Statistically the numbers in the 6-month report virtually guarentee that the large majority of arrestees had just a tiny amount of marijuana.
07 Feb 2007 at 09:27 am | #
Thank you, Mr. Patton - excellent work as always! If there is a deliberate campaign to enact regulations that will disproportionately affect African-American or poor residents, it must be identified, called out, and opposed. I look forward to the results of your further investigations.
This looks like a way to establish a bureaucratic foothold for the marijuana ordinance, by claiming it’s helping to reduce the number of chronic nuisance properties. What it really is is institutional discrimination against people who have a record. If there’s no time limit involved, that group will just keep growing. If you were busted for possession 5 years ago and have been straight since, should you have trouble finding a place to live? Maybe you even learned a lesson about responsibility that will make you a better tenant. With or without time limits, this is still wrong.
Minor drug charges account for a lot of the bottleneck in the justice system. Tell City Council to drop the marijuana ordinance when it comes up for renewal, and while they’re at it, review the penalties for other drug-related offenses. With some sensible reforms, they could do a lot to relieve the load on the Justice Center’s processing capacity and help the police be more efficient, and we might not need to build a new jail after all! Can our legislators even conceive of that possibility?
07 Feb 2007 at 01:51 pm | #
Whoa! Hold up here!
I suggest you look at ORC 5321.05, Obligations of Tenants. In addition, you might want to refer to ORC 2925, Drug Offenses, and ORC 3719, Controlled Substances.
Also, HUD makes it perfectly clear that convicted drug dealers cannot live in public housing, that is subsidized in any manner by taxpayer funding. That’s Federal Law.
What happens in many cases is that a relative or relational person (mother of the child) will move the convicted drug dealers under the lease & never report it.
CMHA is having difficulty cleaning out their properties that are infested with drug dealers. Other tenants in a particular CMHA property witness this activity, call the hotline to report it. The CMHA office advises the tenant of record that they’ll be paying a visit(mandatory), which gives the tenant enough time to get drug dealing daddy out of the unit & off the premises. This was discussed at a recent CMHA meeting.
Take a good look at City West. A real hard look. What was to be a community where all people could reside, regardless of their income & color, has turned into a drug dealing ghetto. Talk with the elderly living in the Seniors section. They’ve gone from bad to worse. You’ll see the boyz at Linn & Chestnut at any time of the day or night. I was told by an individual who doesn’t live far from there that the drug dealers moved their families right into this community.
It is true, landlords rent to drug dealers, the liability clause on insurance can skyrocket. In addition, vicious dogs brought onto the rental premises without the permission or knowledge of the landlord can & will cancel the property owner’s insurance. It’s an altogether different ballgame for insurance, over & above what the usual homeowner has for a single family, owner-occupied dwelling. It’s poles apart.
I don’t look at what is being suggested as a method to keep the weed ticket ordinance. It’s a matter of enforcing laws that are already on the books & in force for years.
07 Feb 2007 at 02:36 pm | #
Prohibition didn’t work. We are reliving it in the worst way. During prohibition families like the Kennedy’s where able to amass legal fortunes off it. RICCO will not allow that today. What do we do? People have to live somewhere and many people who qualify for public housing have convictions.
07 Feb 2007 at 02:41 pm | #
I value Michael’s work and efforts on many fronts. In this matter I wonder if there are handouts available from the meeting that could clarify what was presented. My understanding from other landlord participants, African-American, Causacian, Hispanic, Appalachian, is that folks convicted of felony possession were of more concern than the minor offender for a “weed ticket”.
For a single dwelling landlord, not part of a “masked” LLC where one has difficulty assessing true personal ownership, there are ramifications that can come back to haunt if one does not live on-site. For the larger multiple dwellings with no landlord or manager on site, it is just as difficult, depending on the tenant/landlord relationship.
One instance that struck me was of a residence where tenants did not exercise caution with guests visiting, allowed them communal basement access to smoke weed, kept the matter cloaked from the landlord. In the process one of the participants took apart the smoke detector connected to a security system “so the landlord wouldn’t think badly of them for smoking”. Security company contacts landlord, landlord reconnects smoke detector. Notifies tenants of matter. No one takes responsibility. Two days later, same event happens. Same cycle. The system is over 16 feet above floor level. So we have 4-6 tenants in a fairly secure establishment who can be placed in physical jeopardy.
Let’s see what other eyes are out here. Are there landlords that feel the same as MAP in his look at this issue involving housing-stock, responsible landlordship, responsible tenants. Or am I being too harsh in my view of responsible citizens all having a part here? That also includes police and fire personnel.
I agree with Anon 1:51’s wider view here. There is the battling of depressions associated with the realms of poverty, neglect of people, educational stewardship that cannot bear the weight of those it needs to lift up.
The wider views here become so because we are coming with different histories and views, different visions for a present and a future. Ethinic Cleansing is a real overkill Banner Headline....got the audience...but this ia not about divisions of culture and race. This is about decades use/abuse of the poverty “pimp” system that continues to roll out the dry ice smoke for the actors on stage for this next series of performances.
07 Feb 2007 at 04:27 pm | #
As a property owner/investor, the prospect of being held accountable for someone else’s criminal activities doesn’t thrill me. I believe the punishment for crimes that require multiple police runs should be stiffend to the point that one run would be sufficant. That said, because I have a good working relationship with both my tenants and the police, I doubt I will ever have to deal with this issue up close and personal. This is an ordinance that is on the books to keep absentee landlords, who exercise no onsite management, from allowing chronic low life trouble makers from destroying the well being of the surrounding community. If I’m not mistaken, the problems that Westwood/Pricehill are facing is one of the driving factors behind this ordinance. To be able to believe this is a race issue, you would have to believe criminals are so because of their ethnicity.
07 Feb 2007 at 06:05 pm | #
Let’s back up.
Police are telling landlords not to rent to people with a drug charge on their record. Leslie Ghiz has said the new pot ordinance is not going to target college students. Sounds like profiling, now designed to influence landlords into not renting.
Police calls for truancy? Now a landlord is responsible for someone else’s kid going to school?
Are you kidding me?
07 Feb 2007 at 08:00 pm | #
It’s a police state! Where are people supposed to live? What about other crimes? I’d surely feel safer living next to a mellow pothead than a a thief or someone convicted of domestic abuse. And while we’re on the subject, and at the risk of being accused of supporting child molesters, I pose also, where on earth are sex offenders supposed to live? And a sex offender can be an 18 year old that had a consensual sexual relationship with a 17 year old. The hysteria and witchhunts ignore statistics that 90+% of molestations happen in the home by a relative. So while certainly we need to protect kids against molesters, maybe the home should be under more scrutiny and the neighborhood less. I’ve known many people that have recounted being molested as a child. All were victimized by father, uncle, close friend of the family. I’ve never known anyone that was abducted, though of course it happens. The point is, where the hell are people supposed to live. Maybe once convicted of a crime they should just voluntarily commit themselves to prison for life. At least they’d have a roof and 4 squares.
07 Feb 2007 at 08:15 pm | #
In response to Anon (#5) and JennyEdwards (#7):
My column was about those who had been convicted in the past, did their time, paid their penalty, and are now to be denied housing. I fully realize that the use, sale, or possession of certain substances is against the law. That does not mean that I agree with the law in all aspects—no, I use my First Amendment right to petition for redress of grievances. But that is for another time.
I certainly do not condone drug dealers in an apartment building. I had one once in my building, and the police in District 4 point blank refused to do anything about it. So I had to evict him, claiming non-payment of rent. (I had no proof that he was a drug dealer, and I never saw it myself. I am basing this on what my tenants told me.) He used every minute until the bailiff arrived to sell drugs. He sat on the fire escape ladder under the street lamp. There was non-stop traffic in the building, attempted break-ins in other apartments and cars to get money to buy drugs, urination in the hall, and at least one beating in the hall by his enforcer (read that again—enforcer!). Believe me when I say that I do not want this to happen again.
By the way, the police at the seminar were very explicit in saying that they do not have to make an arrest, issue a citation, or obtain a conviction for the activity to be counted towards the quota. The calls I myself made to the police would not count, but the calls my tenants made would.
I gave the exact wording from the handout—no tenants with previous drug convictions allowed. This was emphasized verbally at the meeting, and the officer even stated that some may find it harsh. The context was in a presentation about recognizing drug activity in and around one’s building—crack, marijuana, meth, and heroin were all mentioned. A lot of time was spent on explaining that if the police DO make an arrest for drug possession or dealing against one’s tenant, the landlord does not have to wait to see if the person is actually convicted. For drug arrests all that is required for eviction is the police verifying that the person was arrested for drug activity.
Keep in mind that this all is in the context of the chronic nuisance premises ordinance, which holds the landlord civilly and criminally liable for exceeding the quota of nuisance calls. Criminally liable means that the landlord can go to jail for activities that not just the tenants do, but also friends and relatives of the tenants.
As I stated above, the police emphasized that those landlords who cooperate with the police do not face prosecution. There were about 50 landlords in the room and most seemed comforted by that. I was not. Cooperation is not defined, but it is determined solely by the police and may involve the landlord following “any lawful order” (Section 761-7).
Clearly a landlord has the right on their own to determine not to rent to someone with any kind of criminal conviction. My problem is that the police are systematically contacting landlords and recommending this. Actually, as stated about, their recommendation against tenancy is ONLY for those with a drug conviction. And the context is very, very clear—if you cooperate with us, then you have nothing to fear.
The law is extremely strict. Only those who cooperate with the police have nothing to fear. There are differences, but this reminds me of Coates vs. City of Cincinnati, a 1971 U.S. Supreme Court case which found that prohibiting “annoying” behavior when three or more people gathered together is unconstitutionally vague. According to Justice Stewart, it thus made a crime what under the Constitution cannot be a crime. In the present case merely operating an apartment building with ordinary, fallible, human tenants, may make the landlord a criminal.
07 Feb 2007 at 11:25 pm | #
http://www.hud.gov/offices/hsg/mfh/gendocs/evictionfaqs.pdf
Here’s a 17 page question & answer regarding HUD’s policy on drug dealing, other criminal activity & sex offenders in Section 8 housing.
Although the City’s nuisance property laws might seem overboard, it is issues like the one MEP outlined that communities & the police are trying to stem the growth & spread. There’s many Section 8 landlords who’ll cheerfully take the vouchers for their tumbledown properties, never bothering to check their prospective tenants. And do they ever get nasty when community people call them up about their nuisance tenants dealing dope, noise & racket at all hours of the night, loud fights with the child’s mother, the whole bit. Some of them will annoyingly slam the phone down when a community complainant calls, even worse, when someone from the police station rings their phone.
This isn’t a race/ethnic issue. This about people behaving badly & criminally while living off the gift of the taxpayers - public housing. And it is a gift from the taxpayers.
If they can’t behave & contribute something worthwhile to the improvement of the community, then they need to go.
This nuisance ordinance was crafted from the feedback & horror stories presented by a wide cross-section of residents in quite a number of communities. This wasn’t something cobbled out solely by the Westwood & Price Hill folks. Almost every community has Section 8 tenants behaving poorly. And the community leaders decided enough is enough & they’re fighting back.
Handling rental property is not an easy task anymore. I don’t always look at it as being an investment & an addition to my income. It’s a lot of time consuming work, over & above attempting to keep one’s own private residence neat, clean & presentable.
08 Feb 2007 at 07:13 am | #
MEP, people keep coming to the defense of this in regards to Section 8, but no where in your article do you mention Section 8. In what capacity is Section 8 relevant to your point?
08 Feb 2007 at 08:26 am | #
Here’s a couple of questions; who gets a ticket or arrested at a CMHA owned building with too many calls? If no arrests or citations are necessary, to have a run count against a landlord, what is to keep and individual from using it for harrassment?
08 Feb 2007 at 09:29 am | #
In response to the Dean’s question (#13):
Section 8 is not relevant to my point in the slightest. It was not mentioned at all in the seminar.
In addition to my own experience with the police being non-responsive about drug dealers I have been at three community council meetings—all different neighborhoods—where the same issue has come up. In one the CPD officer stated that they had been told not to patrol in that area because that was reserved for the sheriff’s patrols. In another the CPD officers stated that they had enough information to arrest the drug dealer in an apartment building but were going to wait awhile before doing so. When pressed they wouldn’t say why. In the third the police would not say why they were non-responsive but stated that the people complaining should e-mail the chief.
The chronic nuisance premises ordinance puts the burden on the landlord, not on the police. Why would one think that a landlord would want someone to terrorize their other tenants? Now I can conceive of a landlord of a single family house not caring about renting to a drug dealer if the bills are paid and the landlord has no other tenants nearby. In fact, that is the classic “crack house.” AND THE ORDINANCE AND THE POLICE ARE VERY CLEAR THAT THE PENALTIES DO NOT APPLY TO LANDLORDS OF SINGLE-FAMILY HOUSES.
I do wonder what’s up. This law seems designed to appear like council is doing something against crime when they are not. Like the sexual offender ordinance, where the offender is allowed access to child play areas when they are open but cannot sleep within a thousand feet when they are closed, the law seems designed more to harrass and exclude certain catagories of people than to solve an actual problem. In this case it seems designed to exclude ALL convictees of drug offenses, INCLUDING marijuana smokers, from renting in Cincinnati. And most of them are undboutedly African-American.
If you have money and own your own condo, then hey, even if you were convicted of holding a joint, no problem!
08 Feb 2007 at 10:18 am | #
My community has dealt with one particular nuisance property for over two decades. The owner showed up to collect rent, but ignored complaints about drug deals, guns and shoot-outs, prostitution, excessive noise, litter, traffic and all the extras that come with drug addicted loiterers (urination on sidewalk, defecation in neighboring yards, used condoms and spent drug baggies along the curb).
About 4-years ago, and after all efforts were exhausted, an attempt was made to declare the property a public nuisance. This would have been the first time a nuisance abatement action was used on a residential property. The action is extremely difficult and next to impossible to achieve. It requires efforts from the health department, fire department, buildings and inspections and naturally, the police department – all with hard proof. If successful, and in the worst case scenario, the owner could have lost his/her property rights to that building. The process took nearly 2.5 years - all the while the activity continued.
A nuisance abatement action was not secured and the city settled out of court with the owners (with conditions met). I mention this because there are scores of buildings like this throughout my community and all of Cincinnati. It is one of the contributing factors prohibiting community and economic development. It contributes to a crime invested, run-down blighted community where conditions can only fester (broken window theory).
MEP described statements made by the CPD at the seminar. If accurate, and in my opinion, the CPD should have advised landlords not to rent to people with recent drug distribution charges and not simply generalize prohibiting anyone with a drug conviction.
The economic state of Cincinnati is questionable and council is charged with the task of increasing its tax base. I see the Chronic Nuisance Ordinance as an extremely valuable tool to aid in this effort. This tool forces absentee landlords to step up to the plate and when compliant, it will reduce the drug crowd that exists in Cincinnati’s most depressed communities where the activity is concentrated. This would immediately be good for the community and give it a chance to grow.
I respect MEP’s attempt at controversy, but I think it irresponsible for him to purposefully allude to “ethnic cleansing”. I live in a community that is 90 % African American. As a community we rank among the highest in crime stats across the board. My community is black and we are committing crimes. I do not see the Chronic Nuisance Ordinance as a way to cleanse our communities of African Americans, but rather cleanse our community of drug markets and the entire nuisance that goes along with them.
I look forward to coming entries on this subject.
08 Feb 2007 at 11:34 am | #
A small price to pay…
“A lot of time was spent on explaining that if the police DO make an arrest for drug possession or dealing against one’s tenant, the landlord does not have to wait to see if the person is actually convicted. For drug arrests all that is required for eviction is the police verifying that the person was arrested for drug activity.”
Have we given up the concept of the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Are there no more rights under the Constitution?
I’m sure that in Germany in 1941 people were told; “go back in your houses, we are just after the jewish criminals.” If you go along we won’t bother you. or “As I stated above, the police emphasized that those landlords who cooperate with the police do not face prosecution. There were about 50 landlords in the room and most seemed comforted by that. I was not. Cooperation is not defined, but it is determined solely by the police and may involve the landlord following “any lawful order” (Section 761-7).
When are we going to stand up to these blatant violations of our rights under the highest law in the land. I am not advocating breaking the law but rather enforcing the law. The unlawful enforcement of ordinances against property owners is not Constitutionally Compliant and therefore has no validity.
08 Feb 2007 at 01:53 pm | #
More evidence that this is about the denial of due process:
I just now noticed section 911-5 of the Cincinnati Municipal Code. It seems that we have already had an ordinance to take care of the case where a landlord was renting where felony drug activity has occurred. It is simple and straight-forward. Once the police notify the landlord in writing, using certified mail or personal service, that felony drug traffic has occured, the landlord is on notice and must take steps to prevent the activity from re-occurring. If the landlord does not take action then they are subject to at least 10 days imprisonment for the first offense and 30 days for the second.
Some of the difference between the new and the old ordinances are:
1. The new one does not apply to single-family buildings. (And why is this?)
2. The new one does not require the police to make any arrest or citation before warning the landlord.
3. The new one is not restricted to felony drug charges but includes misdemeanor charges, such as possession of small amounts of marijuana.
4. The new one does not require the landlord to be notified by certified mail or personal service. (If the problem with the old ordinance is with the certified mail or personal service part, then why didn’t council change that?)
K. Hale (#16), you did not state if the property was a single-family unit or a multi-family. If it is a single family then the new ordinance does not apply anyways, but the old one does. The old one has been around since 1996.
My remarks about the police statements are accurate. They were given to us in writing. The police claimed that they had been thoroughly reviewed before distribution.
Pointing out organized, systematic efforts to deprive us of our rights is not an “attempt at controversy.” I and others have talked to council members before about this, and also to the police. We were ignored. You have not heard about my earlier efforts precisely because I had been trying to work quietly. This ordinance is now in effect and the first landlords can be cited soon. The police are going around asking landlords not to rent to ANYONE with ANY prior drug conviction. The time for quiet is passed.
08 Feb 2007 at 09:43 pm | #
MEP, thanks for this upsetting news. We’ve got a nuisance single family in the neighborhood & the landlord refuses to evict the tenant, despite phone calls. The tenant runs a haven for drug traffickers & other criminals. In fact, “YaYa” lets a drug distribution duchess utilize the place to have daily meetings with her drug salez boyz.
It’s a section 8 property & the landlord is rather ambivalent about it. “What should I do? Call the police?” Community reply, “We’ve done that. The cops on the beat are already plugged in. That’s why we’re calling you, to hit your reset button so you’ll get dialled in.”
It’s so pathetic, I’ve got this landlord-clown’s number on speed dial. Everytime I see something, I first call the cops & then I call the greedy slumlord.
Yeah, the time for quiet is over. I say it’s time to rock & roll.
08 Feb 2007 at 11:36 pm | #
Interesting news about the excusion of single family homes. I’ve lived in Northside for 25 years and, in my experience, the biggest problems come from Section 8 tenants living in single family homes. I may also add that the landlords are a big piece of the problem given their failure to maintain property and/or screen tenants.
I agree with an earlier poster about the “ethnic cleansing” being unfair. All races need to abide by the laws. Black folks who do so will obviously not be affected by this ordinance.
I also agree with Jason that the truancy inclusion is absurd.
08 Feb 2007 at 11:47 pm | #
MEP- sorry to dump researchon you - but, you really need to get a coopy of the history of illegal drugs that runs onthehistory channel - what they found regarding the targeting of black people is astonishing .
sorry, i’m way too busy with OTHER things.
geez, maybe you should run for office or something, so many people rely on you for the truth and the research on social issues.......
keep up the great work
09 Feb 2007 at 12:37 pm | #
This is odd ...
I want to expand on something that I said earlier. I said about the chronic nuisance premises ordinance that it was very clear that it does not apply to single family properties (comment #15). Yes, the ordinance seems to apply only to multi-family dwellings, but I don’t know if I would still say ”very clear.” In fact the covering resolution by council does not restrict it to multi-families and talks about residential rental properties in general. And some of the wording in the ordinance implies that all property—single-family or not, rental or not, residential or commercial, even those properties without any building on them, are included. So it is easy to see how one could be led to think that single-family properties are included.
But everybody at the meeting said it applied only to multi-family buildings. That part of the ordinance is unambiguous. The police in their published regulations emphasize that only multi-family are included. So in any event, it is indeed very clear that the police have no intention of applying it to crack houses and other problem properties if they are single-family.
10 Feb 2007 at 10:37 am | #
Continued:
The link I provided above doesn’t take one all the way. One has to scroll to the bottom of the page and click on “CPD Procedure Governing Chronic Nuisance Ordinance Enforcement.”
11 Feb 2007 at 02:06 am | #
Want a sure-fire way to get rid of drug dealers and other low-lifes in small buildings, even large ones for that matter?
Separate the utilities and make tenants pay for gas and electric service. The dealers probably have poor credit, and they won’t be able to get utility services from the local energy provider. And furthermore, they may not want to create more of a paper trail about themselves by creating more of a record where they live.
Trust me, it’s a great screening device. Oh, and another thing, run credit checks. They cost $10 or $15 each. Charge an application fee that will be refunded less the cost of the credit check if the applicant is turned down. When you they learn this, you’ll never hear from them again.
Trust me, it works.
12 Feb 2007 at 12:37 pm | #
In response to anon (#24):
I agree about the utilities. A landlord needs to do that anyways because people will waste the utilities if they don’t pay for it. That works for the gas and electric. Heat can still be supplied by the owner as long as it is controlled by the owner. As for the water the city has a law which makes the owner of the building responsible for the tenants’ water use.
But your comments only reinforce how absurd it is for the police telling the landlords how to screen their tenants. There are ways other than a blanket prohibition against anyone with a drug conviction, even a minor one. A tenant can have a drug conviction and still be a responsible citizen. It is not up to the police to say “no second chance.”
And, this nuisance law is designed for selective enforcement. Everyone involved at the meeting admitted that. And is there any doubt that the marijuana law is selectively enforced, and that it is enforced mostly against African-Americans? We have reached a new low when laws are openly designed to be enforced only against those whom the police select.