Avondale residents want downtown/midtown nuisance ordinance
KHOU-11 reports that Avondale residents are asking Council to approve a nuisance ordinance for their neighborhood:
The crime comes up when the sun goes down in Avondale.
The Houston neighborhood, concerned about its image and safety, is turning to city hall for help.
They want to expand a downtown ordinance to keep unwanted guests out of their area.
[snip]
"It's not uncommon to see men urinating on the fence there," [one residnet] said, "We see drug deals going on."
But this this was nothing. During the day there's always a police cruiser coming down the block.
But come shift change at 6 p.m. and the whole seedy side of life is on display outside his window.
There simply aren't enough officers.
So Avondale wants to be included in what's called the Civility Ordinance which, currently, only downtown and Midtown have.
"The ordinance was part of an effort to clean up for the Super Bowl, as I understand it," said Dale Harger.
Harger says it was written so the city could push the street people out of downtown.
But, in a practical sense, it can apply to anyone who's loitering, including guys that Louie thinks are dealing drugs.
Just one question -- if the problem is that there aren't enough officers to patrol the neighborhood at night, how is creating a new nuisance ordinance going to solve that problem?
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 05/08/06 09:51 PM | Houston Miscellany | Print | Comments (13)
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