The City Council voted 8-0 (Conlin excused) this afternoon to adopt a new Chronic Nuisance Property ordinance that is designed to stop frequent criminal activity at commercial and residential properties across the city. We have worked on this legislation for just over a year and it was personally gratifying that all of my colleagues supported this work.
The new law will help people protect their neighborhoods, including some who have lived with drug trafficking, prostitution, and other street-level crime for years. Unfortunately, there are some property owners who don't care about their neighbors and they allow all sorts of criminal behavior to flourish. These owners destroy neighborhoods and the Council said today with its vote that we've had enough.
The legislation gives the city an additional tool against property owners who knowingly and repeatedly allow criminal activity on their property and fail to take steps to stop it. Under the ordinance, following police investigation, the city can seek a court determination that a specific property is a chronic nuisance. Court-ordered penalties could include fines up to $500 per day that the nuisance continues, a $25,000 fine if a property owner fails to respond to city attempts to resolve the nuisance, and other nuisance abatement steps the court may impose.