MORGANTOWN — Liira Raines, an Organizer with Our Future West Virginia, said drug house ordinances are little more than a way to work around civil rights and due process protections.
Raines will present that case at 11 a.m. Saturday during an open meeting at the First Presbyterian Church, on Spruce Street.
They told The Dominion Post that they began organizing the meeting last month, after it became known that the Greenmont Neighborhood Association planned to ask Morgantown to join most of the state’s larger cities in passing such a law, which are aimed at curbing reoccurring behavior by holding property owners responsible for what goes on in their properties.
There isn’t a draft ordinance spelling out what such a law would look like locally, and they vary from city to city.
For example, in Bridgeport, two offenses at a property in a 12-month span will trigger an abatement notice to the property owner. In Clarksburg, the law says whenever two or three residents make a complaint, the city will take a look.
The end result of the city getting involved is typically eviction, and potentially, the implementation of background checks by landlords for future tenants.
“The really dangerous part of these nuisance ordinances is that they don’t require convictions. They don’t even require charges. It’s just the police being called,” Raines said, explaining that decreased 911 calls is often presented as proof the ordinances are effective.
“I would contend that people being afraid to call the police because they might lose their house is not actually a good thing.”
The ACLU of West Virginia concurs.
The organization said such laws disproportionately affect women, domestic violence survivors and communities of color.
“In some cases, for example, a domestic violence survivor may have to choose between reporting a crime to keep themselves safe or staying quiet to maintain a roof over their head,” ACLU-WV Legal Director Loree Stark explained.
In essence, the ACLU contends, nuisance laws violate Constitutional rights, including the right to due process as well as the right to petition the government for the redress of grievances. The agency said the laws often violate the Fair Housing Act as well.
Raines said they hope Saturday’s meeting will help get the word out.
“It’s open to anybody interested in taking the time to learn about these and oppose them,” Raines said. “We’ve got a lot of problems, and I wish we could get the city out of the mindset that we can punish our way out of them.”
