Also, I apologize to any and all who were offended by my remarks. I’ve stayed out of the Pit for quite a while, and since I’ve revisited there recently I sometimes forget my place. I’ll do my best to keep things apropos to the forum I’m in in the future.
In a thread post nearly 2 years ago the OP was about the odor from drug use in a nearby apartment. I gave my two cents on that which I will now update. The occupants of the unit next door to mine liked to use scented candles, apparently wall-to-wall and I have allergies. I had to live with that but they also woke up to a crack or other pipe that flowed thru the wall into my bedroom, taking my breath away and making my eyes water. There would also be fights in the breezeway outside my door, with participants banging on nabor’s door and nabor demanding $45 debt payment. Another nabor banged on his door one a.m. and said “Jason’s dead” . Later I saw nabor escorting “Jason” thru the parking lot to a car to go to the ER for obvious/apparent OD. He survived. That time. He had earlier lived above me and cops, after complaint about pot odors, had found “blunts” in his toking spot in the breezeway. Complaints to apt. management got sympathy and “we can’t do anything unless they are caught doing something”. Calls to the rent-a-cops that handled law enforcement at the complex got sincere-sounding lip service about the non-users’ rights to drug free environment but when the chief rent-a-cop and his first captain showed up at a complainant’s door reeking of pot smoke, the complainant gave upon that. One night the city cops were called when the rent-a-cops did not answer their phone. The city cops (routinely) called the fire department who responded and went to the wrong apartment looking for the source of the noxious fumes and the perps left during the search. Several months later the toking nabor was arrested for dealing but was back in business within a week. He was evicted, moving out the same weekend that I moved out to a suburban house (my lease had expired). Cost us several thouSand for the move but now the ony grass that bothers me is when it gets mowed and I get my hay fever.
As for the OP, my dad had a concern about frequent short term traffic at a house next to his many years ago (north of Boston) and he made a list of all the buyers’ license tags for a few weeks but never did anything about it. While I was visiting there I observed a dude with a what looked like a chemist’s valise enter and a large 3-ft x 3-ft x 4-ft acoustic speaker being wheeld into the adjacent house. I only imagine what they were cooking up.
Dnooman-You can either “live and let live” and ignore your nabor’s activities, you can report your suspicions and hope the powers that be can/will do something about it, you could set up a videocam and record some evidence for a representative period but be prepared to move if it is later used for evidence as the perps will know whence it was shot and may want to retaliate.
dnooman, a couple of thoughts:
It’s far, far, far more likely that what you have is a small-time pot dealer out there than anything hard or nefarious. It’s just far more statistically likely because there are far more small-time pot dealers out there than any other category of drug dealer. It’s also far more likely that they’d be as bad at it as you describe in the OP.
Are people carrying out packages when they leave? Any level of “wholesale” dealing, or dealing anywhere near the top of the food chain, means that the people leaving the premises are leaving with much more than their personal use stuff, and so they’d have to be carrying stuff. Y’know, in a bag or something.
Finally, let the police do their job. No, your license plates may not be much use to them, especially if they already know about the house and have it under some sort of surveillance or investigation of their own. The plate numbers might just be a distraction, pulling some officer off of useful work to interview you just to make you feel like you’ve contributed enough.
If you pursue other avenues (alderman, news outlets, etc.), you might mess up the cops’ work. I had one acquaintance who was “lucky” enough to be busted by local cops acting on a local tip - literally days before the feds were going to move in and take him themselves. The local people screwed up the warrant (wrong address), so not only did he not go to jail as a result, but that alerted him to their awareness, and he skeedaddled at got rid of all his stuff before the federal agents had whatever i dotted or t crossed that they needed to nab him.
IANAL, or a law enforcement professional, but even I know that this isn’t admissible as evidence in any sort of prosecution. Only license plate numbers that the PD themselves have collected “count” in a prosecution. The license plate numbers that you collected only served to give them a basis for opening an investigation.
And I found a cite:
So there’s really no point in the PD earmarking man-hours for already overworked personnel to sit down and run those numbers. What if they did find that vanity plate “COCAINE” was connected to other drug busts in the past? That fact doesn’t help them further their present investigation; it’s not admissible as evidence in any case they may be making up against your neighbors.
So they’re not going to ask you for your list.
Browsing around on Google under various “How to get rid of drug dealers in your neighborhood” .gov and .org websites, I see that the advice is basically:
- Take down license plate numbers to establish that there is in fact traffic.
- Report the suspected drug activity to police.
- Do NOT confront the suspected drug dealer.
- Be patient, and don’t get upset if you don’t see anything happening right away.
This is just not true. If the plate number of a car is relevant for some reason then a citizens testimony that he saw it could be admissible. A cop is no more qualified to testify as to what numbers were on a plate than anyone else. Looking at numbers and remembering them is not a special skill.
I am not saying that in this scenario the plate numbers would be admissible just that if they are admissible then dnooman or any other citizen who saw them could testify to that fact.
You might want to call the police again as it’s happening. You could also follow up with your earlier phone call, reminding them that you do have a list of license plate numbers. It’s possible that info got lost in the shuffle.
You’re doing the right thing. Keep it up.
Call your alderman or equivalent, the same action you would take if potholes weren’t getting fixed. Emphasize that it’s a neighborhood quality-of-life and safety issue.
No insults in MPSIMS, dnooman. Calling someone “retarded” and “d***” (the astericks don’t help, especially when we all know what you mean) is behavior best suited for the Pit. Please do not do this again.
I apologize for insulting the OP. While I checked my language at the door, I didn’t remember that this isn’t GD. I brought down this whole thread, and I’m sorry.
I agree with that. Personally, and this is just me, given my stance that drugs should not be illegal, I would be hesitant to give any support to this law. The fact that this violence is in part caused by that same law would give me pause before sending the police.
I would presume peacefulness on their part until proven otherwise. If there were shouting at the house, maybe a person limping out and kicking the dealer’s car (just for example), I would not hesitate to call the police. As soon as there were any credible chance that there were a threat to my person, I wouldn’t hesitate to use whatever means necessary to protect myself.
But the simple truth is that the majority of dealers are just smalltime who never have to deal with violence. And this OP seems quite ignorant of all things related to drugs, and I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if this wholesale distribution center turned into just a kid selling pot to his buddies.
Leaving aside for the moment the morality of dealing drugs, there is a reason most local governments create commercial and residential zones. I don’t want somebody running any business open to customers from their house. The increased traffic alone makes it inappropriate. If you sell a product to customers you are supposed to do it in the appropriate location. Neighborhoods are places where kids play people relax and are meant to be places where people live not conduct business.
ETA: the picture painted by the OP is not one of a few buddies dropping by.
Wrong. The issue is the danger that a crack house causes to public safety. In the days when blow jobs and anal sex were criminal, an open minded person could ignore it with no harm to anyone. Blow-jobbers don’t usually kill each other, and random passers-by in a turf war. Blow jobbers don’t cause crazy people to burgle houses for the price of the next blow job. Blow-jobbers don’t kill neigboours merely on suspicion that they might be a witness. Drug dealers do do all these things and more, which very much means they are harming people other than themselves.
There is certainly an argument that drugs should be legalised. Maybe a lot of problems could be eliminated if drugs were sold openly by licensed and legitimate pharmaceutical companies. But, while it is illegal, and supported by extreme violence, it must be opposed. And that’s the real issue. Not the drugs per se, but the assopciated violence.
I think Eliot Ness made a similar point about the sale of alcohol. Just because alcohol is legal these days, does that make Al Capone any less of a bad guy?
Something the OP didn’t mention was that if the place isn’y just a weedy hang out, desperate users will do anything for a buck when they need it… including breaking in to the closest apartment.
In light of the frequent visitors next door, and the fact that the landlord let an abandoned car sit there for a year, I would start looking for a better place to live.
In the meantime, I don’t think there is too much else to do, now that you have expressed your feelings to the police.
You’re right. I acknowledged this as on justification for calling the police already. But he didn’t say that. He merely said “it’s illegal” and told me to stuff my “pooper” with a jackhammer.
Your argument is good. His was not.
The law isn’t what causes the violence – although violence might be encountered during a drug bust, this is not where the violence surrounding drugs comes from.
As Cat Fight pointed out, hardcore drugs (excluding soft stuff like weed and such) are often addictive – incredibly so. Ever seen someone detoxing from heroin? I have. It’s a hell of a lot less pretty than watching the same person taking the drugs. Addicts will do anything – anything – to get money for their fix because the withdrawal can be excruciatingly painful. Breaking into houses, mugging, robbery, etc. are not even remotely beyond the scope of an addict needing a score. Dealers looking to be repaid a debt can get violent, too, especially if the debt is considerable. They also don’t cotton much to anyone they think might be witnesses to their operation, and tend to express their dissatisfaction in tragic fashion. And where there are hard drugs being dealt, it’s almost guaranteed there are weapons, probably unregistered. Nothing about drug dealing is safe. The OP did the right thing, and if his suspicions are right – and let’s face it, frequent short-term traffic at all hours that is obviously anything but social strongly suggests that he is right – then I hope something is done about it.
No, but that doesn’t make other prohibitionist bootlegers who didn’t hurt anybody any more of a bad guy.
An alcoholic won’t do any of these things? Here are some statistics on alcohol-related violence. And as you saw from the effects of prohibition, illegality only increases violence. The vast majority of drug users are peaceful just as the majority of people drinking alcohol are peaceful. Compared with marijuana, for example, alcohol is significantly more dangerous as it impairs judgment and increases aggression.
And why do you think that is? Do you think someone can just go to the police about a man who owes money for cocaine? What do you think they’ll do? Many people are tens of thousands of dollars in debt to the bank, but because lending is a legal enterprise, there is a legal and peaceful remedy to any disagreements. Contrast this with the tactics loan sharks use to get their money back.
heh…bootleggers that were against the sale of alcohol? How did they make any money?
Nobody is saying they are bad for selling drugs but that increased traffic, strange people coming and going and all the bad stuff that goes along with a busy drug dealer is hurting dnooman and he has a right to want to put a stop to it. Even if drugs were legal I would not want the activity described in the OP going on in my area.
ETA: ForumBot you are engaged in a different argument. This thread is not about whether drugs should be legal but whether the activity described in the OP should be stopped. Do you want to live next to a house where people are coming and going all the time? Where lots of strange cars are around? Shady people doing shady things?
For what it’s worth, askeptic, I agree with you that if he fears violence then he has every right to defend himself, even if it involves invoking an unjusitiable law. I don’t think that’s the ethically best thing to do, but it without a doubt is justifiable.
edit: trying not to hijack any further
I agree with this in part. On the whole, pot is generally safer than alcohol, legalities aside, as alcohol can breed violent drunks, while pot mostly breeds empty bags of Doritos. And I’m anti-drug. (Pot and similar soft drugs are debatable; hard drugs I consider wholly unacceptable.) But that’s not what is at issue here. There is violence associated with drugs. That is the present state of affairs, regardless of where it comes from. Anyone who finds themselves in close proximity to it and who fears for their safety or the safety of others is perfectly within their rights to try and have something done about it – and they should. It’s not being a rat. It’s not even NIMBYism. It is a perfectly reasonable sense of personal and/or community safety. Were I in his position I’d have done precisely the same thing, for my own good and the good of those who could potentially be affected by it in any way.
Incidentally, do you really think an addict will have legal, non-violent ways to get their hands on a fix when they’re broke and can’t afford one? Legalizing drugs may or may not reduce the associated violence, but it will not eliminate it. There will never be a time when the drug dealer next door is not a concern because there will always be a concern for personal safety, even if it’s only by his customers. Anything that invites violence, or even the potential for it, into a community is not welcome.