Pubdate: Mon, 08 Mar 2004 Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch (VA) Copyright: 2004 Richmond Newspapers Inc. Contact: http://www.timesdispatch.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/365 Author: Alan Cooper Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/landlords LETTER UNSETTLES AREA LANDLORDS It Says They Can Be Charged With A Crime If Tenant Is, Judge Says The plan is to recruit Richmond's landlords into the war on drugs. Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Michelle Welch said she has found most landlords willing participants. But Richmond attorney Nancy Ann Rogers, who often represents landlords in Richmond General District Court, found the recruiting pitch a bit heavy-handed. Landlords came to her with a letter on the stationery of Richmond Police Chief Andre Parker. The source of the letter was unsettling enough, Rogers said, but what the landlords gleaned from a quick reading was even more disturbing: Someone has been arrested for illegal drugs on your property, and you can be arrested unless you evict that person. That interpretation was oversimplified, Rogers said, but it was scary enough to bring the landlords to her for advice. The city's general district judges who hear landlord-tenant disputes also have been troubled by the letters, which have been going out for more than two years, with about 225 sent in the past 11 months. The judges asked for a meeting last month with Commonwealth's Attorney David M. Hicks, and the letter is being revised as a result. The judges say they can't talk about the issue because they have cases pending that are based on the letters. But one of the judges, Barbara J. Gaden, voiced some of those concerns last week in dismissing an effort by a landlord to evict a tenant as suggested by the letter. Police had identified a tenant in an East End residence who had been charged in October with possessing cocaine and marijuana with intent to distribute the drugs. The letter also noted that drugs had been found in the residence. A prosecutor had withdrawn the criminal charges the day before the hearing, even though a lab report showed that police had seized about 2 grams of cocaine divided into 26 packets and another package with 5 grams of the drug in it. In dismissing the eviction effort, Gaden said she could not consider the letter and the lab report without a policeman or some other evidence to tie them to the tenant. Holding the letter, Gaden told Rogers, "There's no way to read this except as a threat." The letter overstated the possibility that the landlord could be charged with a criminal offense, Gaden said. It included a state law that allows a property owner to be charged with a misdemeanor if he permits his property to be used as a common nuisance, identified as a place where drugs are used or sold. "One charge of possession does not constitute a common nuisance," Gaden said. The letter does put the landlord on notice, however, that at least one instance of illegal drug activity might have occurred on the property, noted prosecutor Welch, along with Zoe Anne Green and John Butcher. Green and Butcher are members of the board of the police department's Community Assisted Public Safety program, better known as CAPS. CAPS is an outgrowth of Team Zero Tolerance, a group of community activists who work with police on such quality-of-life issues as drug activity, graffiti, and vandalized, dilapidated and vacant buildings. Butcher, a South Richmond resident, said the letters to landlords address what "I like to call the rule of 215 because my experience has been with the Midlothian Village over here, which has 215 rental units." "If you go to police a place like that, you either police 215 separate tenants after the fact, because that's the way the cops act, or you police one landlord before the fact." He added: "The reports I'm getting are that the good landlords call in and say, 'Oh, my Lord, I don't want this on my property. What can I do?' Which is exactly the reaction that everybody wants. Nobody wants to prosecute any landlords." Lt. Thomas P. Nolan, the officer in charge of CAPS, said the letters are sent when police officers find drugs inside a residence. "Landlords use it as a tool for effectively managing their properties," he said. Butcher, a retired attorney, said: " I understand that statute, so I understand what [the letter is] saying with a great deal of detail. A naive customer might get an entirely different reaction." If the problem with the letter is a matter of its tone, he said, "that's fixable." A remedy is in the works. Welch has drafted a new letter that puts the landlord on notice that illegal drug activity is taking place on his property, with the date and the identity of the person arrested. The new letter invites the landlord to call Nolan. It identifies the arresting officer and tells the landlord the police department will make the officer available if the landlord wants to go to court to evict the tenant. The letter does not contain the text of the statutes that were included in the original letter. "It's kind of a noble thing we're trying to do," Welch said. "We're trying to get our hands around the drug problem. There's a huge drug problem in the city, and it's creating a homicide rate that's out of control. "We're trying to get at it this way because you do have slumlords in the city, and you have some that don't care about what's going on, that you have drug dealers standing out front and terrifying their tenants." A change in tone isn't enough, said John A. Conrad, an attorney and former City Council member, who recently defended a tenant in an eviction proceeding based on a letter. Conrad said he recalls discussing a similar technique when he was on council. "The original idea was to use a civil action by the city for nuisance as another tool in the fight against drugs against properties that had a long history of drug convictions," he said. "In my case, they sent it to a property where there was no history of drug convictions." The program overreaches by putting the tenant in a position of defending his right to his residence before the criminal case is tried and, in some cases, when drugs were found on the property but no charges were filed, Conrad said. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin