LOOK L.A.'S WAY IN MAKING LANDLORD LAW

Costa Mesa is considering a law that would compel landlords to evict
anyone arrested -- not convicted, but merely arrested -- for any drug-
or gang-related offense. At face value, the proposed law seems like
one that would create a field day for the American Civil Liberties
Union.

I grew up believing that the ACLU walked on water, and although now I
rarely side with them, most of me was hoping they'd challenge this new
ordinance before the ink was dry.

Then I spoke at length to Fred Szkolnik. For the past 21 years,
Szkolnik has been practicing landlord-tenant law in Los Angeles, most
of which involves helping landlords get rid of deadbeat and nuisance
tenants -- nuisance being defined as anyone who puts mayonnaise on a
corned beef sandwich or who says "Wait till next year!" before the
Chicago Cubs have reached the all-star break.

Szkolnik, who has handled more than 20,000 cases in his career and who
has also served for the past 15 years as a judge pro tem for the
downtown Los Angeles Superior Court, says that a similar, 4-year-old
law in Los Angeles is doing what it is intended to do. As a
disclaimer, please note that Szkolnik has been a friend of mine for 33
years.

"The city of L.A. is under rent control for buildings built after
1978," said Szkolnik. "If there's a problem, say, a drug-related bust
or a gang-related bust within 100 feet of where the suspect lives,
that qualifies as a drug-related bust to the property."

First point: In Los Angeles, if you are arrested for selling drugs on
Fairfax Avenue and you live two miles away on La Brea Avenue, your
landlord is not compelled to evict you, although you may get funny
looks if people discover you live on La Brea. The Costa Mesa law will
have the same "on-site" qualifier.

"If the property is under rent control, the city attorney will write a
letter notifying the landlord that he can get into trouble for this
drug-related activity and he'd better do something, meaning the
landlord has to start an eviction," said Szkolnik. "Then the landlord
has to notify rent control that they got the letter and they are going
to start a proceeding under the code section that says they have to
move against the drug-related offense.

"If it's not under rent control, meaning a building built after 1978,
you may get the same type of letter but the process is easier because
you can terminate their tenancy by giving them a 30-day notice to
quit," he added.

Second point: In Los Angeles, first-time offenders are not booted from
their apartments.

"It has to be a repeat offender," Szkolnik said.

This is not the same with the Costa Mesa ordinance. Unless it is
changed, ours will be a "zero tolerance," rule and it is here that I
have some problems with Costa Mesa's plan.

In Los Angeles, the power of eviction is used judiciously. Each case
is decided on an individual basis by two deputy city attorneys
assigned only to these cases and many factors are weighed before the
eviction order is sent to a landlord. It is because Los Angeles has
taken these careful steps before moving toward eviction that, in four
years, the ACLU has never challenged their law.

One of the chief arguments for the new Costa Mesa law is that it will
help clean up neighborhoods. But that puts the onus on landlords, most
of whom do not knowingly rent to drug dealers or gang members.

"In my practice, I've represented landlords on this issue repeatedly,"
Szkolnik said. "To the landlords, the law is a nuisance. It's an added
cost that they would rather not shoulder. But most of them that are
independent of residential property management groups see it as a good
thing ultimately because it helps them get rid of a potential cancer
in the building."

Szkolnik estimates that "added cost" is roughly $1,000 per eviction.
There is also the time landlords must take to deal with both the
rent-control board and the city attorney.

"The eviction law has been an effective cleanup law in part because
landlords are happy to get rid of a bad apple," he said. "When we're
working on one of these cases where we do not have the law behind us,
that is, we do not have the authority of the city attorney to back us
up, it's hard to get witnesses to come forward. No one wants to come
forward and say, 'Yeah, this guy is a gangbanger or drug dealer'
because they fear retaliation. But with the law in effect, the city
attorney comes in as a witness, and the police are happy to come so we
get the authorities to support us.

"I see a big picture here. The law helps make a decent place for
families to live and, if [the illegal activity] is going on more than
once, I think that's enough," he added.

I'm still having trouble getting past the eviction of people who have
not yet been convicted of the crime. And it also seems to me that if
our criminal justice system were doing a better job of putting the bad
guys behind bars, we wouldn't have to put landlords on the front line
and then charge them for it.

But if Costa Mesa is going to move in this direction, I'd like to see
more attention paid to the L.A. way of doing things.