Seizure disorder: Seattle's "drug nuisance abatement" program is a menace to law-abiding property owners - Column

Reason, March, 1999 by Michelle Malkin

The files document several instances of apparent overreaching and misallocation of police resources. Sidran's targets have included:

* Rose Ervin, a grandmother described in police records as "an amputee confined to a wheelchair and over eighty years of age." Like Etta Mae Franklin, Ervin was never suspected of having engaged in or condoned illegal drug activity in her home.

* Mae Fosha, another elderly grandmother who had suffered a stroke and a heart attack and undergone two bypass surgeries. She was not accused of drug crimes and went out of her way to meet with police in the East Precinct to help solve a neighborhood crime problem that did not involve her or anyone living in her house.

* Preston Scott Sr., who contacted the Seattle Police Department and "was eager to try and eliminate drug activity" at a home he rented to his grandson. The grandson, Cornell Callendret, was suspected of being a dealer but was never arrested.

* Westerton Currie, an unemployed 71-year-old Seattle resident with a third-grade education, who admitted he had a drug problem and said he needed help. In 1991, Currie's attorney, Jean Schiedler, raised compelling questions about the apparent lack of due process available to her client under the drug abatement statute:

"The City has provided simple affidavits of police officers, declarations reputedly from people within Mr. Currie's neighborhood and police reports inadmissible as hearsay to show the truth of the matters contained therein. Mr. Currie has no meaningful opportunity to challenge or respond to the allegations raised...no opportunity to cross-examine witnesses by which he would be deprived of his property. The court has no opportunity to independently review and assess the credibility of the witnesses or the strength of the evidence."

Similar complaints have been heard from owners of several small businesses targeted for closure. The most prominent local business entangled in Sidran's drug abatement web is Oscar's II, a two-decade-old family tavern in Seattle's Central District owned by Oscar and Barbara McCoy. The McCoys are challenging Sidran's action as a violation of their civil and property rights. Their case, the state's first to challenge the constitutionality of drug abatement, is before the state Court of Appeals. Oral arguments were expected to begin in February.

Sidran argues that Oscar's II is a menace to the community. Yet only one citizen came to a July legislative hearing on reform of the drug abatement law to vouch for Sidran's claims, and she lived in a Belltown condo, miles away from the bar. After a 10-month undercover investigation and 11 alleged drug buys, no arrests were made and no criminal charges were brought against the McCoys or any of their employees.

Ernest Heller, a senior administrative law judge who presided over a state Liquor Control Board hearing to determine whether the McCoys' liquor license should be revoked, concluded that he could not make findings based on the hearsay statements of confidential informants involved in the alleged drug buys. To do so, Heller wrote, "would deny the licensee an opportunity for confrontation" - a fundamental due process concern voiced six years earlier by Westerton Currie's lawyer.