WILSON SIGNS DRUG-DEALER EVICTION BILL; PROSECUTORS TO STEP IN WHEN LANDLORDS FEAR TO ACT.

Byline: Alex Roth Daily News Staff Writer

Gov. Pete Wilson signed legislation Monday to let prosecutors in Van Nuys and four other Los Angeles County areas evict drug-dealing tenants on behalf of private landlords.

Supporters of the law, which will take effect Jan. 1, say it will help protect other tenants and neighborhoods where landlords lack the resources or courage to evict dangerous drug dealers. Under current law, landlords must bring eviction proceedings themselves.

``Families shouldn't have to be subjected to the criminal activities of their neighbors,'' Wilson spokeswoman Andrea Brown said Monday. ``If landlords are unable or unwilling to evict these people, (public prosecutors) should be able to come in and do it for them.''

The pilot program will last for three years and apply only to five Los Angeles court jurisdictions.

The proposal for the law came from the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office, where the state legislation was drafted.

``If you don't get these drug dealers and gang members out of these apartment buildings, you're really never going to completely clean up these neighborhoods,'' City Attorney James Hahn said Monday. ``And we recognize that a lot of times it is a pretty scary thing for landlords to do.''

Under the bill, prosecutors who identify a drug-dealing tenant as a nuisance would give landlords 15 days to begin eviction proceedings. If a landlord failed to act, prosecutors could handle the eviction themselves and then bill the landlord up to $600.

The new law also will allow prosecutors to seek eviction of a drug dealer without trying to evict other law-abiding residents of the same apartment.

Assemblywoman Sally Havice, D-Artesia, who sponsored the measure, said this will help some who are powerless to stop drug dealing by others in a household. As an example, she cited a drug-dealing nephew in a disabled man's apartment.

``This poor man is placed in a horrible situation where he isn't guilty of anything,'' she said. ``His only guilt is his disability.''

The bill has received some measured support from tenant-rights groups. Group members say they worry that low-income tenants facing eviction will not be able to mount a proper defense against city attorneys, but they also realize the law will benefit many tenants who live in terror of drug dealers in the same apartment complex.

As originally introduced, the bill would have applied statewide. Rod Field, executive director of the Los Angeles Housing Law Project, said passage of a scaled-down version ``gives me a lot of peace of mind in terms of being able to monitor it.''

The law will be applied in five municipal courts: Los Angeles and Van Nuys districts, Los Cerritos, Long Beach and the Southeast Judicial District.

The state Judicial Council will evaluate the program's effectiveness by Jan. 1, 2001, and report its findings to the Legislature.