Soggy Wednesday.
In the not so distant past, local officials were hesitant to reach for the municipal nuclear option — nuisance abatement ordinances — to deal with persistent problems within city limits.
With good reason.
Using the law to declare private property a public nuisance was, is and should be an arduous process.
Officials across any number of a city’s departments including housing, inspections, police would need to spend weeks compiling evidence that a dwelling or business presented some sort of danger to the taxpaying public.
Then the lawyers would get involved by filing complaints and going to court to convince a Superior Court judge that shuttering (or demolishing) needed doing.
Finally fed up, officials in both Winston-Salem and Greensboro appear to have gotten more aggressive about going nuclear in their dealings with certain businesses — nightclubs, bars and strip joints, say — known for fomenting dope deals and gun violence.
People are also reading…
And they just might be onto something.
The most recent example came Monday in Greensboro when Superior Court Judge William Wood approved an agreement between the owners of the Secrets Cabaret strip club on West Gate City Boulevard and city attorneys that effectively shutters the joint.
The process began Feb. 22 when the city formally filed a nuisance complaint days after Greensboro police and the N.C. Alcohol Law Enforcement agency not so secretly raided Secrets and seized guns, dope, cash and alcohol being served illegally. Eleven people were charged in connection with nefarious activities inside the club.
As nuisance complaints go, this one moved rapidly — most likely because the owners and city lawyers reached a deal rather than battle it out in court.
And judging by the terms of the agreement, the negotiation appears more like a one-sided directive rather than any sort of give-and-take.
JEMM, the company which owns the property, agreed to sell the property to someone (or something) unaffiliated with JEMM within six months.
During that time, the building has to remain vacant, which means no income, and Greensboro cops are authorized to charge anyone caught on the property with trespassing.
And if the building isn’t sold, the city will be allowed to order its demolition with the owners footing the bill.
The city’s end of the deal? The lawyers agreed to drop the complaint.
“I hope this judgment puts other property owners on notice that we will not tolerate nuisance activity and violence within the city of Greensboro,” Mayor Nancy Vaughan said in a prepared statement.
So yeah, the nuclear option.
Monday’s agreement came on the heels of similar complaints across the Triad.
Winston-Salem officials went straight to Defcon 1 in November after five people were wounded when a gun-toting knucklehead decided to shoot up the Spott bar on North Glenn Avenue.
A 26-year-old woman named Briyonna Mickens-Gambille was charged Nov. 29 with five counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, and for good measure a sixth felony for discharging a firearm within an enclosure to incite fear.
Has there ever been a more fitting charge? What else would you call such an act?
Oh, and the attempted massacre came just weeks after a man was killed at the bar on Nov. 4. Six people shot in the same Spott in the same month sure seems to fit the very definition of nuisance.
In that “negotiation,” the bar’s owner agreed to voluntarily surrender his liquor license.
“I talked to the city attorney … and we are collecting data on that right now,” Mayor Allen Joines said afterward. “We don’t do it lightly, and the courts would not approve it without significant data.”
Not that nuisance complaints are any kind of arms race, Vaughan floated the idea of using applicable ordinances to go after a watering hole called Electric Tequila Bar & Grill on Battleground Avenue.
Her honor, see, happened to have a front-row seat during a police ride along the night of Nov. 4.
Normally, ride-alongs for elected officials amount to guided tours dressed up as fact finding missions.
But that night, patrol cars enveloped Electric Tequila following an eruption of gunfire. Two people suffered life-threatening injuries and several unoccupied vehicles were struck.
Investigators would wind up spending some 500 hours on the case. The cops charged five people in connection with the shootings and said earlier this month that 14 guns were used and some 116 spent shell casings were recovered.
Videos circulated on YouTube — what else? — helped focus attention on the bar and ramped up public pressure to get something done.
The nuclear option wasn’t needed, though.
Maybe it was the mere threat of a complaint. Or just as likely, perhaps the landlord had had enough. Either way, Electric Tequila’s lease was canceled.
Nuisance abatement, legally speaking, is a difficult bar for cities to clear. It should be the ax behind the glass — used only in case of emergency.
But with record numbers of killings in Triad cities in recent years and Congress unwilling or unable to do anything substantial about gun violence, it’s been left to local officials to use whatever legal means at their disposal to fight back.
And by aggressively using nuisance laws, it sure looks as if they’re onto something.
On the good side of the ledger
Not that we care about mayoral reading lists or want to seem as if we’ve been cyber stalking elected officials, but a social media share by Mayor Nancy Vaughan a few days ago is worth noting.
In a Facebook post over the weekend, Vaughan shared a link to a story published earlier this month in The New York Times which showed Winston-Salem and Greensboro atop a very desirable list.
And because she’s thorough, the mayor helpfully cut and pasted the key bits for interested parties to see.
Winston-Salem came out on top of a list of 100 U.S. cities for the biggest drop in rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the last year with a 19 percent decrease to an average $850 per month.
Greensboro and Albuquerque, N.M. were right behind with 18 percent ($930 per month) and 15 percent ($900) decreases respectively.
A real-estate outfit called Zumper looked at over 1 million apartment listings in 100 cities to mine for trends.
Rents for one-bedroom places fell in 57, stayed about the same in 11 and increased in 32 cities. Recent construction accounted for the decline.
Syracuse, N.Y with a 22 percent increase ($1,050 per month), Chicago at 21 percent ($2,170) and New York City at 18 percent ($4,200) topped the wrong side of the ledger.