By Angela Lau
Staff Writer
City Councilman John Hartley vowed yesterday to “clean up the war zone” along Bates Street, the drug-dealing haven where a woman was stabbed to death last month while her 8-year-old son was sleeping. “This is a dangerous cul-de-sac. Even police officers are nervous about patrolling in one-person cars,” Hartley said after touring apartment buildings lining Bates Street. “It’s quiet now, in the morning, but in the afternoon there will be many people out here dealing drugs.”
Hartley, who represents the neighborhood near the intersection of 58th Street and University Avenue, was accompanied by representatives from the Darnall Community Council, which is a neighborhood organization, and the San Diego Apartment Association. Pointing to the apartment building where 26-year-old Jacqueline “Jackie” Griffin was stabbed to death in a midnight party while her son slept, Hartley said: “We need a concerted effort to clean up this block.”
His plea was net with cautious enthusiasm by residents and neighborhood activists. “We need to do something. This could be a great neighborhood, but the vacancy rate is about 70 percent,” said Phil Bonham, who manages two of the Bates Street apartment buildings. He also co-chairs the Drug Abatement Task Force of the San Diego Apartment Association. Currently, Bonham said, there is no cooperation among property owners. Evicted tenants can readily find refuge in another building down the street.
Attempts at forming neighborhood-watch committies also have failed because the children of families wanting to participate were "beat up," said Craig Ludwick, president of Darnell Community Council. Hartley said he will try to forge a cooperative effort among the city and Bates Street property owners to evict drug dealers and addicts and to screen future applicants. If the owners refuse to cooperate, Hartley said, he would urge the city attorney's office to use drug-abatement measures to force them to take action.
The drug-abatement program applies to owners of properties that are used for drug-related activities, said narcotics detective David Swartzendruber. The program gives the city the authority to eventually seek court action to impose penalties that include a maximum $25,000 fine and the closing of the property for one year.
Hartley also said City Manager John Lockwood has promised to meet with Bates Street residents. “Great,” said Robert Adatto, general manager for College Terrace apartments at the eastern – and better kept – end of Bates Street. “We’ve been making a continual effort to get the other landlords to help get rid of the drug problem since we took ownership two years ago, but it just didn’t work out.” Adatto said the other landlords “weren’t committed at that time to screen tenants and make physical improvements to attract a better class of tenants.”
Emma Guiterrez, 30, a tenant, echoed his feelings. “I hope they can do something.” Talking from behind a chain-link fence that encircles her building, Guiterrez said her husband was approached one night by drug dealers. “We don’t leave our apartment anymore once it gets dark,” she said.
Pitching in to help, the Housing Commission’s Rehabilitation Program will advise property owners of measures they can take to reduce crime, Manager Rand Steward said. Those measures include 24-hour management and rejecting applicants with drug-dealing backgrounds. “This neighborhood is in bad shape, we hope we can do something,” Stewart said.
Reprinted from
The San Diego Union