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A prosecutor had withdrawn the criminal charges the day before the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