How Can Rental Owners Join the War Against Drugs?
By Joseph M. Schilling,
Deputy City Attorney,
City of San Diego
And Lt. William Becker,
San Diego Police Department, WE-CAN Unit
In the June issue of Rental Owner, we discussed the City Attorney’s use of California’s Drug Abatement statutes. These statutes permit the filing of civil complaints against property owners for the illegal drug activities of their tenants.
While drug abatement has become an effective tool that local officials employ against neighborhood drug dealers, there are many other ways to attack this complex problem. This article focuses on specific ways rental owners can directly participate in their rental properties.
We are losing the war
The experts agree that we are losing the war against drugs. Before we can regain a foothold in our neighborhoods, we must recognize that a more effective solution to this social ill starts with interpersonal changes from within a person or group of individuals. Mothers, fathers, families, neighbors and citizens from every community must band together.
No matter how much the Federal Government spends in eradicating cocoa farms in South America or employing the military t stop drug smugglers at our borders, the permanent solution must start at home with stronger support from our families and in our neighborhoods.
One neighborhood looks for solutions.
Last month we attended a neighborhood meeting at a church in Southcrest, an area in Southeast San Diego, where the community is starting to mobilize this change of attitude that is so vital to our success.
Officers from the San Diego Police Department's WE-CAN Unit (Walking Enforcement Against Narcotics) organized the evening's program. Councilmember Wes Pratt and various staff members from the Mayor's Office and local congressional and state assembly offices were present. High ranking police officers from the department's specialized drug units transformed the church into what looked like a temporary police substation for the evening.
During the following two hours, citizens of this community voiced their concerns to this collection of federal, state and local government officials about illegal drugs and how they have destroyed the heart of their neighborhood. The most telling incident was a young father who presented a handful of automatic machine gun casings he and his five-year old son had collected from their front lawn, the result of a drive-by shooting on the previous night. While San Diego has not yet experienced the volume and intensity of such violent acts as Los Angeles, drive-by shootings in Southcrest have become more commonplace.
The citizens expressed their frustration with the apparent inability of local officials to combat or control this serious drug problem. While the Police Department, the City Attorney and Council Offices can assist, the collective conclusion of this lively exchange was that any successful solution to the proliferation of illegal drugs must start within the hearts and minds of these residents and their families.
There was excellent direct participation by the people who live in Southcrest, but one group was inadequately represented at this meeting – the rental owners. Many of the properties in Southcrest, as in other communities in Southeast San Diego, are owned by people who live far away from this drug-infested area. These owners were not there.
Rental owners must become more active in fighting this pervasive problem, if communities like Southcrest can ever hope to reverse the recent trends in violence.
It’s important to remember that there is no community in San Diego that is completely drug free. Thus, direct participation of absentee owners throughout the entire city is necessary if we are going to successfully control illegal drug trafficking and its associated harms in our neighborhoods.
What can rental owners do to join the battle against illegal drugs?
Carefully screen prospective renters.
If an individual pays cash for first and last month’s rent, plus a large security deposit from a wad of bills, this should send a signal to any property owner or manager – why does this person have so much cash? Was it obtained illegally?
Several months ago a person paid approximately $125,000 in cash for a home on Old Memory Lane in Southeast San Diego. The seller and the lending institution paid no attention to the fact that this buyer was only 25 years old and had no previous credit history.
Now, someone might believe that this buyer was a child prodigy of Donald Trump or had just inherited loads of money from a rich uncle. Yet, common sense should have raised a red flag to the seller and the lending institution.
While it may be hard for these individuals, particularly lending institutions, to look beyond the financial data and concern themselves with the quality of life in a neighborhood, everyone must be aware of these widespread signs that the tentacles of illegal drugs have spread throughout our society.
Our advice to large and small scale rental property owners is to request credit reports. Call the references listed on the rental application. Ask these people what the applicant does for a living and how long they have known this person. One might be surprised to get a candid remark from a disgruntled family member that your prospective renter is heavily involved in the drug culture.
Recently, some of your colleagues have retained private investigators to conduct such background surveys. While putting a lot of effort into the initial screening of your prospective resident may cause some inconvenience, it clearly much easier to reject an application that to evict a renter involved in illegal drug dealing. In any case, use caution and some old-fashioned common sense before accepting a new resident.
Consider hiring on-site management or private security
Some rental owners employ both on-site managers and private security guards to maintain good control on their properties. For rental properties on 16 units or more, of course, on-site managers are required. But in many instances it may be worthwhile to have a manager even on smaller rental properties.
Please be careful when you select and hire these agents. They can also be tempted by the lure of drug money. The Police Department has encountered apartment buildings where managers have accepted bribes from drug-dealing tenants to act as lookouts. Periodic monitoring of your manager’s activities by an impartial outsider – even by a private investigator, may not be a bad idea, especially if you have received reports from renters about the manager’s suspicious activities.
Work with the Police Department
By far the largest majority of property owners and property managers continue to provide the Police Department with first hand information about drug dealers in their neighborhoods. Managers and other renters are often well aware of the “modus operandi” of the drug culture:
The trafficking of illegal drugs is often no different than operations of a regular business in a residential zone. One can notice the regular business routine of the same people coming and going on the same days.
Many property owners and on-site managers have provided the Police Department with access to vacant units for surveillance in the gathering of intelligence information against drug dealers.
Recently the police have started to use a reverse string strategy where they sell simulated drugs to prospective buyers and then arrest these unsuspecting buyers when they walk outside. This successful program could not have been accomplished without a rental owner’s willingness to donate the use of a vacant apartment.
File your own drug abatement action
In June’s Rental Owner, we analyzed California’s Drug Abatement Act in the context of civil actions brought by the City Attorney’s Code Enforcement Unit. Please note that Section 11571 of the California Health and Safety Code provides that private citizens may file civil complaints alleging that particular property owners have created public nuisances by maintaining or permitting illegal drug activity to occur on their property.
While the Police Department and City Attorney’s Office cannot conduct a full-scale investigation, both departments are willing to assist in any legal manner should a private property owner decide to file a Drug Abatement case.
Participate in a Management Alert Group
Recently a group of property owners, managers, business persons and developers formed a Management Alert Group in Southeast San Diego. They meet once a month to discuss ways of combating illegal drug dealing in front of their businesses and in their rental units. This group is patterned after the Police Department’s successful Neighborhood Watch Program for residential areas.
Drug dealers are bad for everyone in a neighborhood – businesspeople, rental owners and residents. Business owners lose money when drug dealers and users scare customers away. Therefore, this management Alert Group has formed to see what they can do to join the war on drugs.
Rental owners in neighborhoods intimidated by drug dealers might wish to form a similar group.
Looking toward the future
We hope this article has provided you with some direction on how you can become directly involved in the war against drugs in your neighborhood. Remember, we all have a stake in the outcome of this war, regardless of whether it’s where you live or the rental property you own. Only by working together can we make a difference.
The last article in this series will look towards the future. One of the more innovative concepts that police have started to use to combat illegal drugs and other law enforcement issues is Problem Oriented Policing (POP).
San Diego is one of five cities in the nation to receive a grant from the Department of Justice’s Police Executive Research Forum to implement the POP model in our war against drugs. In the final article in this series, we will explore development of the POP grant here in San Diego.
Reprinted from
Rental Owner Magazine