10:06am: Talkline with Hoppy Kercheval

Police chief says numbers tell the story after 3 years of drug house ordinance

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — Police Chief Maury Richards says the city’s three-year-old drug house ordinance has worked “beyond our wildest dreams.”

Richards is releasing some numbers this week that look beyond the 59 residential properties that have been shutdown under the provisions of the ordinance.

During an appearance on MetroNews “Talkline” Friday, Richards said overall crime on the block where the house is located is down significantly when you compare the year prior to the shutdown with the year following.

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“Violent crime has dropped by 51 percent; property crime by 35 percent; drug calls of all kinds by 52 percent; public nuisance by 34 percent and overdose calls by 54 percent,” Richards said. “Not only is it making a difference for who lives in that house but it’s also making a tremendous public safety difference for that entire block, cleaning it up, giving the decent citizens a better quality of life.”

The numbers also show 89 arrests with the closings of 59 houses and 80 of those arrests are on felony drug charges.

“The criminal justice system has taken care of a lot of these problems as well,” Richards said.

More and more landlords are working with police, according to Richards. He said the landlords are committed to doing a better job screening potential tenants.

The ordinance reads, “Under the provisions of the Drug House Ordinance, property owners are subject to fines if they fail to take appropriate action to abate the problem after 30 days of notification. The Order of Abatement announced today contains compliance stipulations including: evicting the problem tenants, other actions to prevent the recurrence of illegal drug activity, and mandating criminal background checks on future tenants to insure they are “free from convictions for prostitution; illegal gambling; illegal possession, storage, or delivery of or trafficking in controlled substances, or other illegal drug activity.”

Richards said he also believes morale among police officers is better because they are relieved of repeat calls to the same property.

“If we can shutdown a house and we know that it reduces return calls by 90 percent–you know you’ve solved that problem. We’re saving hundreds of hours of police manpower,” Richards said.





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