OUR SAY: RULING SHOULDN'T BE THE END OF CITY'S DRUG LOITERING LAW

CITY OFFICIALS knew it was a gamble when they passed a drug-loitering
law that the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP had vowed to
fight in court.

It was a gamble we supported because the 1999 law had support in the
neighborhoods directly affected -- the ones where police have not been
able to break up open-air drug markets.

The city lost the opening phase of the gamble last week. U.S. District
Judge Catherine C. Blake issued a 45-page decision striking down the
law, on the grounds that it gives city police too much discretion in
deciding what constitutes drug-related behavior.

For the city, it was a disappointment but not a shock. The federal
courts have been split on anti-loitering laws, and the issue wasn't
really resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court's 1999 decision on a Chicago
law targeting street gangs.

So it was hardly a surprise that the city ran into an unsympathetic
judge. If there's an appeal, Judge Blake could well be overruled.
Certainly that's what the measure's original sponsor, Alderman Herb
McMillan, believes: "Turning away would not only be a betrayal of the
neighborhoods that so desperately need the law -- it would also be
legally and financially reckless because the city is well positioned to
prevail in the 4th Circuit Court (of Appeals).

But City Council members who opposed the measure in the first place --
it passed by a 5-4 vote -- will stress the expense of a legal fight. And
the ACLU will try to make that expense as prohibitive as possible: Its
officials say they will petition the court to have the city pay the
organization's legal expenses, which they put at more than $200,000 --
roughly six times as much as the city spent.

Beneath the legal disagreement is a philosophical chasm. The ACLU and
the NAACP argue, essentially, that the most important thing is
preventing bigoted cops from getting a legal license to harass young
people exercising their constitutional right of free assembly.

The council majority -- along with people in city neighborhoods living
with discarded drug paraphernalia on the front lawn and the occasional
stray bullet whizzing through the house -- think that, if the
neighborhood requests it, police should have an extra tool to break up
outdoor drug markets.

Which way will the courts finally come down? We don't know. As a matter
of principle, the city should appeal. And we think principle should
prevail unless the city gets legal advice that a further struggle is
hopeless.

If this law does go to the scrap heap -- without ever having been
enforced -- city officials will face a tougher problem. What are they
going to do for city residents who have to live with drug markets right
outside their locked doors?