MORGANTOWN — A Greenmont Neighborhood Association meeting packed Gene’s Beer Garden on Monday and concluded with dozens of neighbors voicing support for a drug house ordinance in Morgantown.
Adelheid Schaupp made the pitch, complete with a color-coded map showing vacant houses, overdose calls and addresses with multiple calls for service from the police in the last year.
She explained that the purpose of a drug house ordinance to make the property owner responsible for the what goes on in the property. Multiple drug-related issues in a one-year span and the property owner is contacted by the courts and given 30 days to fix the situation. Eviction is the typical result.
Westover has such a law — so does Parkersburg, Huntington, Wheeling and a list of other cities, Schaupp explained, noting she doesn’t buy the claim that drug house ordinances are an attack on low-income housing.
“Addiction doesn’t have a socioeconomic boundary. It’s everywhere. It’s across the board. You cannot make this a low-income housing issue. It’s not,” Schaupp said. “People are trying to simplify it by saying this is against low income housing. This is against drug dealers and landlords who don’t do shit, and there’s a lot of them.”
Dave Harshbarger represents the 6th Ward on Morgantown City Council. He said he generally supports the idea, but would like to see it tweaked to avoid unintended consequences.
He offered an example in which the oldest child of a single parent ends up getting the whole family thrown out on the street.
Greenmont Neighborhood Association President Ivy Deal said the group is willing to work with council to further craft the law.
Council will have the ordinance as an agenda item for its February committee of the whole meeting, slated for Feb. 25.
This isn’t the first time such an ordinance will be pushed by a group of neighbors. In September of 2018, residents of Sanford Street asked council to take look at drug house laws, but the issue never got much traction.
Schaupp said it’s time to do something besides the revolving door of arrest and release. She passed a draft ordinance around the meeting written, in part, by Morgantown Police Chief Ed Preston.
“We know the drugs are here. We’ve moved on from cannabis and things like that. We’ve got hardcore drugs now where it’s much more visible to us. We can see where the people are using,” she said. “You can’t ignore it any more.”
