LOS ANGELES (CNS) - Lawsuits will be filed Monday against two properties and their owners, in Venice and in the Del Rey neighborhood, as City Attorney Mike Feuer announced today a further crackdown on houses that allegedly served for years as dens for illegal drug sales and other criminal activity.
Feuer’s office said today the properties’ addresses and owners would be disclosed at a news conference Monday. Los Angeles police are scheduled to be present.
The city attorney said he plans nuisance abatement lawsuits “as part of a sustained, coordinated effort to rid Los Angeles of these nuisances.”
In February, Feuer filed suit against owners of so-called nuisance houses in Hollywood and South Los Angeles.
He cited the owner of a house at 1233 W. 53nd St. of running a “hybrid PCP swap meet and flop house,” where the Crips street gang has held sway for more than a decade, according to the city’s lawsuit.
Police allege more than nine criminal cases involving PCP and weapons possession are pending from the home, owned by Mattie J. Sampson. The injunction asks that her son, a known gang member named Bobby J. Sampson, and
others be prevented from setting foot on the property, Feuer said.
City attorneys also sued David Lester Baxter, who owns two adjacent properties in Hollywood on 5655 and 5657 Lexington Avenue, where the city alleges methamphetamine is sold and stored.
The city is seeking injunctions at the Hollywood houses to prevent the owners and known associates from illegally selling, making or storing controlled substances at the properties. Current tenants would need to move out and stay at least 1,000 feet away as part of the proposed restrictions.
The Hollywood properties have been an “epicenter of criminal activity” over the past decade, city attorneys said. Prostitutes, transients, parolees and people on probation frequent the home, where 15 arrests have been made.
Feuer said a “single property can endanger an entire neighborhood” and property owners are responsible for keeping them from becoming crime dens.
“If they fail to fulfill that obligation — ignoring criminal activity, for example, that jeopardizes neighborhood safety — my office will hold them accountable,” he said.
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