Cleveland City Council’s safety committee is hitting the pause button on new legislation cracking down on properties with repeated complaints of criminal activity.
There are questions about whether the city is enforcing the law already on the books and whether other city laws get in the way of enforcement, said Safety Committee Chair Michael Polensek during a meeting Wednesday.
“We know we have to do something. Summer is coming upon us and we continue to get these nuisance problems in our neighborhoods, complaints. I know because I get them,” said Polensek.
Under current law which was passed in 2018, the city can first give property owners a chance to address any issues at their properties once three “nuisance activities” in a six-month period have occurred.
There’s a long list of activities that fall under the category of a nuisance, including disorderly conduct, use of alcohol by minors, endangering a child, noise violations, littering and gambling offenses.
The proposed legislation would add vehicle noise issues like removed mufflers and street racing in an attempt to address people using parking lots for donuts or racing.
Under the new legislation, the owner of a property declared a nuisance must come up with a plan to prevent future issues and, if that doesn’t work, pay a fine each time police respond to a call at the property.
Under current law, enforcement is based on either an arrest or citation issued for conduct at the property. The legislation expands probable cause to include witness statements to a police officer. And that raises questions, said Councilmember Brian Kazy.
“Where you’ve just got an angry neighbor who doesn’t like their neighbor and now is just calling, for whatever reason, and this is just becoming too broad. And are people going to be targeted if they’re not liked in a neighborhood?” said Kazy.
The expansion of what qualifies as a nuisance is meant to address officers frequently arriving to calls and finding that everyone at the property is gone already.
Property owners can appeal the public safety director’s nuisance property declaration to the Board of Zoning Appeals.
City officials did not provide the total number of properties declared nuisances or the fines levied in the past year during Wednesday’s council meeting.
“We don’t know if it’s even worth it, on this side of the table we don’t know if two letters have gone out,” said Kazy. “Are we doing this just to look good, just to sound good? We have no factual evidence that what is currently on the books is or is not working because we don’t have the numbers or the statistics to back it up.”
Council asked for those numbers at their next committee meeting.
The legislation also adds a new category of people whose conduct could be tied to a property. Currently, it’s just owners, inhabitants and invited guests. This legislation adds “a person associated with a property.”
That was added to hold business owners accountable when people outside a business engage in criminal activity, said Assistant Safety Director Jason Shachner.
“There were issues with patrons visiting a bar, they were blocking traffic,” said Shachner. “The owner of the bar wasn’t adequately controlling their own patrons, but we couldn’t hold that person responsible or declare that a nuisance property because originally the only people that could be doing a nuisance activity was an owner or employee or invitee.”
Council plans to continue discussion of the proposed ordinance next week.
