City Making List of Top Nuisance Complaints

City Council members would like to crack down on “chronic nuisance” neighbors of all sorts, from bars to homeowners who store rusty cars on their lawns.

But it might not be so simple in residential neighborhoods, City Attorney Mike Webb said at Tuesday's City Council meeting.

The issue of financial loss as a result of responding to public "nuisances" arose  about two years ago after police responded numerous times to bars in the area of Artesia and Aviation boulevards on reports of assaults and vandalism, officials said. Now the city is considering requiring owners of nuisance properties to compensate for those losses.

“Chronic nuisance” establishments would be those that receive “more than the general, acceptable level” of city services and place “an inappropriate and undue burden” on Redondo Beach taxpayers, according to the council agenda.

After researching laws in other states, Police Chief Joe Leonardi suggested the council consider fining establishments with entertainment permits that repeatedly are the focus of neighbors' complaints requiring a police response.

Leonardi said that establishments qualifying as “chronic nuisances” usually have absentee landlords.

“You’re always trying to go after the tenant, which often is ineffective,” Leonardi said. “The landlord often says, ‘As long as they’re paying their rent, I don’t care.’ That’s what we often get from business landlords as well as some residential landlords. … The goal is compliance, not punishment.”

Additionally, Leonardi asked the council about the possibility of going after nuisance properties in residential neighborhoods, to which council members responded with strong interest.

“I don’t care if it’s because some 70-year-old is running around in his underwear in the front yard or whether it’s because they’re parking the car on the grass and code enforcement comes out every week,” Councilman Matt Kilroy said, saying he meant only "repeated calls that are verifiable.”

Kilroy added, “I’m not looking to rewrite the code book as to how many chickens somebody can have in their backyard.”

“We want to recover funds,” he said. “Even someone who gets drunk every Saturday night and you (police) have to repeatedly go out for loud noise, then that person needs to be held accountable.”

More than anything, Kilroy said, he wanted the city to draw down the bond of commercial businesses with an entertainment permit that were responsible for numerous calls for police service over 12 months. 

Councilman Steve Aspel said the nuisance establishments seem to change every decade or so and switch from one area of town to another.

“You have a home with all these cars and other homes look down on it, and there’s really nothing we can do, but I’d like to figure out a way to get some teeth in this thing, so you can go after the landlord or go after the homeowner that just doesn’t care,” Aspel said. “I don’t want to turn into Irvine where everybody has to be exactly alike, but I also want to have some kind of teeth in the deal.”

Councilman Bill Brand said the car wash on Torrance Boulevard is an abandoned nuisance parcel that is hurting surrounding property values. Officials also noted that a barbecue on Avenue A and a swimming pool on Fisk Lane might be considered nuisances by nearby neighbors, as well as a trumpet player on Catalina Avenue.

Webb warned against getting involved in residential issues. “You (will) put yourselves in the middle of every neighborhood dispute and give an incentive to people to call the police on their neighbors.”

In the end, the council directed Leonardi and Webb to work together to come up with a proposed ordinance the public could comment on before any vote is taken. City staff is expected to compile a top 10 list of common types of nuisances in order of priority, beginning with commercial property. Staff will share that information with the city attorney and police chief as they craft a proposed ordinance.

After the 40-minute discussion, Aspel was the only council member who didn't support looking into developing a proposed ordinance that would collect money from “chronic nuisance” properties. 

“I’m happy the way we are right now,” Aspel said, adding that the city has a shortage of enforcement officers because of the budget crunch. “We don’t have a chronic nuisance problem. If there’s a problem with the bar on Artesia, they (police) can deal with it," he said. He also explained why he thought a nuisance ordinance that included residential property would be a bad idea.

"They’re going call the cops on your house because your kid might play his CDs too loud or his iPod too loud. You got a cranky neighbor. All of a sudden that neighbor can make you a criminal just because your neighbor is over-sensitive. I don’t think we have to change anything.”