From the Village Voice:
The drug trade subsists through a network-- dealers, buyers, producers, stash houses, wholesalers, transporters, and so on. Eliminate a single branch, and the network will slow for a bit but then soon regenerate, with a new buyer or dealer filling vacuum. For law enforcement officials, the size of the dent in a drug operation depends on the number of branches they can take out.
So, here in New York, authorities are going after the infrastructure: police arrest the dealers, and then the city goes after their landlords.
Yesterday, the city filed two separate civil complaints against the owners of Bronx apartment buildings that held stash houses. If the city gets its way, the owners-- listed only as, respectively, 1881 Walton Realty LLC and 164 Realty LLC-- will lose the properties.
The lawsuits, filed in New York Supreme Court in the Bronx, makes the case that each building should be classified as a public nuisance, which gives the sheriff's office the right to seize the property and put it up for sale. The city cites a section of the Administrative Code that states that a building becomes a public nuisance when three or more drug violations occur there within a year.
That standard, the city notes, was certainly met, thanks to a handful of NYPD buy-bust operations.
4 comments:
Doesn't anyone watch Breaking Bad?
The bad guys always win. It's easy money and there are no jobs left in this country.
Just legalize it and tax the hell out of it - it worked with cigarettes.
The NYPD just closed up an illegal Asian gambling parlor (in accordance with a court order)... which was operating out of an internet cafe...located on Crocheron Ave. and 164th Street.
They missed the highly suspect "barber shop" just around the corner...which was closed once in the past...for being a whore house.
Why are the "barber shop's" doors still locked?
What kind of "trim" can I expect to get there if they admit me?
Lean on their doorbell and they won't let you in unless (I guess) you're recognized as a "regular customer".
The drug locations look like they're located south of Northern B'lvd on 162nd Street. RU following any of this...you law enforcement personnel?
Calls to the 109th PCT have gone unheeded.
So let me get this straight. A company owns a building and rents apartments to tenants that legally cannot be discriminated against. Then the tenants decide to use their apartment to conduct illegal activities, so the owner of the building loses the property?!?!
Does anyone else think that this is royally fucked up? Does anyone else think that confiscating buildings from property owners is really going to put a damper on the drug trade? How many drug busts have occurred in NYC Housing properties?
from the comments on the article page.
"I have one question. How are landlords supposed to prevent something that the police are unable to?"
Post a Comment