SUPES VOTE DOWN CAR SEIZURE LAW

San Francisco, which prides itself as The City that knows how, decided that
Oakland's way of dealing with street prostitution and drug dealing - by
seizing suspects' cars - is not the way to go.

The Board of Supervisors resoundingly rejected legislation Monday by
Supervisor Amos Brown that would have allowed police to confiscate the cars
of suspected drug buyers and johns, even if they were never subsequently
convicted of the crime.

Oakland has such a law on the books, and police officers and neighborhood
activists there say it has helped. Brown hoped San Francisco would follow
suit, but was rebuffed by his colleagues concerned about due process. The
vote was 8-3 against the measure.

"I have heard in countless communities the stories of mothers having to
walk their kids to school through a gantlet of dealers, prostitutes and
their customers. . . . Unfortunately, this vehicle seizure ordinance is
just not a method we should embrace," said Supervisor Leslie Katz.

"In this ordinance," she said, "the forfeiting of vehicles runs the risk of
forfeiting those rights we must hold dear, and that is my primary concern.
The presumption of innocence is one of the primary tenets of American
jurisprudence."

Katz was joined by Supervisors Michael Yaki, Leland Yee, Tom Ammiano,
Alicia Becerril, Sue Bierman, Mark Leno and Gavin Newsom in voting against
the proposed law.

Among their chief objections: Cars would be seized without prosecution, and
those trying to get their vehicles back, but who couldn't afford a private
lawyer, would not be provided a public one, because the matter would be
considered civil and not criminal.

The American Civil Liberties Union has sued to stop the Oakland law,
calling it unconstitutional, but lost at the Superior Court and appeals
court levels. The ACLU has appealed to the Supreme Court and vowed to sue
San Francisco if the board had approved Brown's measure.

The San Francisco city attorney said The City's measure would withstand
court scrutiny, and Brown said he added several provisions he hoped would
appease critics. For example, he wanted to exempt people suspected of
buying marijuana and to move the administrative hearing over the seized car
out of the Police Department's jurisdiction.

But in the end, his arguments fell short. Voting in favor of the proposed
law, which was backed by Mayor Willie Brown and the San Francisco Police
Department, were Supervisors Brown, Mabel Teng and Barbara Kaufman, who
said residents and business owners whose neighborhoods are blighted by
hookers, johns and rampant drug dealing need relief.

"We've listened to the people who conveyed their fear, their trauma and
their personal pain," Supervisor Brown said in explaining the reasons for
his controversial plan.

But those opposed said The City should find creative alternatives to combat
the problem. For example, Leno suggested that The City publish the names of
johns in local newspapers to embarrass them, or take their clothes when
they're stopped by the cops and send them home in their underwear.

Ammiano suggested that The City look at so-called traffic-calming measures,
such as speed bumps, to make it more difficult for cars to travel down
streets where the problem is worst, such as Capp and Shotwell streets in
the Mission District. Becerril said The City should install brighter lights
in the problem areas.

And many called for stepped-up police patrols and prosecution of drug and
prostitution laws.

"We shouldn't act hysterically to solve a problem, but to make sure the
laws we have are being enforced," Bierman said in voting against the measure.

Kaufman didn't buy that argument.

"It's been suggested by some that we could do better than the (forfeiture)
law," Kaufman said. "But the reality is that we're not doing better and
there is a crisis in some neighborhoods."

Although the cops say they have made enforcement a priority, arresting
thousands of people on drug and prostitution charges, they add that most
offenders are not serving any serious jail time, if they're incarcerated at
all.

District Attorney Terence Hallinan, who testified at Monday's board
hearing, said that his preference is to put nonviolent offenders in
diversion programs, particularly if they're first-time offenders.

"People in San Francisco are willing to give people a second chance," he
said. He said the focus of his office is to get tough on repeat and violent
offenders.

Ethel Newlin, who works at St. John's Educational Thresholds Center, a
nonprofit in the Mission, lobbied hard for Supervisor Brown's law, hoping
it would quell the rampant drug dealing and prostitution in her area. Yet
when the proposal was defeated, she wasn't too disappointed.

"This whole subject is now out in the open, and it has been acknowledged
that people want something done to help their neighborhoods," Newlin said.
"Maybe now we'll get some real help."