Residents use program to clean up crime problem
ENCINITAS —- After a six-year battle, residents have succeeded in getting rid of a drug house in their neighborhood

ENCINITAS —- After a six-year battle, residents have succeeded in getting rid of a drug house in their neighborhood.

They did it by collectively suing the homeowner, who did not live at the home, both civilly and criminally, using a Safe Streets Now program as a model. Founded in 1989 in Oakland, the program is a last resort that guides citizens through civil litigation when law enforcement efforts have not worked.

In North County, it has been used to eliminate public nuisance houses in Carlsbad and Escondido.

A house can be declared a public nuisance if there are chronic problems with drugs, gangs, prostitution, excessive noise, blight, or other crimes.

In the Encinitas case, the homeowner, who was sued by 17 neighbors, could not be reached for comment for this story. Residents also asked that the name of their small street not be disclosed to prevent possible retaliation.

Eric Casazza, 32, who lives on the street off Birmingham Drive, said sheriff’s deputies told neighbors there had been 32 drug-related arrests stemming from the home, 91 calls for service at the house, and 315 calls for service to the area in the last four years. Sheriff’s deputies could not confirm the statistics, but said it did not seem unreasonable given the history of the property.

Residents and law enforcement officials agreed that the neighborhood changed dramatically after the homeowner rented his home to college students and then moved his adult daughter into the home next door to Casazza.

Residents, who had an active Neighborhood Watch group going, noticed people coming to the house late at night for 10 minutes at a time and then driving off. They wrote down license plate information and reported suspicious people in the neighborhood to deputies. Soon, neighbors found drug paraphernalia on the street near their homes, and someone reportedly overdosed in the garage of the home, Casazza said. The neighborhood also began experiencing a series of mail thefts and car and house burglaries, he said.

Sheriff’s deputies would make various arrests at the home or around the neighborhood, Casazza said. Someone might go to jail for awhile, but eventually they would get out and they’d be at the house again. Deputies would often conduct surveillance at the home and conducted several raids, but the problems continued, he said.

Three deputies testified in court about criminal activity tied to the home.

Detective Ken Jones, who was there when neighbors first began reporting problems, said, “During my time there, we had a large amount of criminal activity at one residence in particular and it affected the neighborhood.”

Detective Jason Stein said, “It’s a very quiet neighborhood. It got to the point where you no longer saw people taking walks with their dogs. … Day by day, I’d drive by there and I’d get stopped by a concerned neighbor.”

The deputies advised the neighbors to begin a civil abatement proceeding on the homeowner to try to get him to manage the problems.

Stein said he and a deputy district attorney sat down with the homeowner and he signed various agreements to clean up the property and to control the problems. As part of the abatement proceeding, the judge could order a lien on the owner’s property if he did not comply.

Initially, the homeowner did seem to comply, but eventually the situation reverted to the way it had been, said Encinitas community policing Sgt. Mike McClain. But by the time it was reported again, the timeline had expired and neighbors had to restart the process, he said.

They were referred to the Safe Streets Now program and served the homeowner with a letter giving him 45 days notice to do something about the problem on his property or be sued.

They did not get a response, so a civil lawsuit was filed. The deputy district attorney added a criminal misdemeanor charge for violating a notice to abate a public nuisance.

The judge filed in favor of the neighbors and awarded each household the maximum of $7,500 in punitive damages, Casazza said. The homeowner had to clear the house out by Jan. 26, and has another 120 days to sell the property, Casazza said.

Another neighbor, Adrian Cooper, said a lot of work was done by residents including Neighborhood Watch captain Joe Koch, who documented the problems.