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

Reason, March, 1999 by Michelle Malkin

Heller found the testimony of a key confidential informant known as "Bright Eyes" particularly disturbing. The anonymous woman participated in the Seattle Police Department's sting operation on six different occasions during 1997. She testified that she had obtained drugs from a customer, who claimed in turn that she had received them from a waitress at Oscar's named Colleen. But the only waitress with that name employed by the McCoys was neither on duty nor on the premises on the day Bright Eyes claimed to have bought drugs at Oscar's. Heller dismissed her testimony as "not credible" and said that "taken as whole, she was not presented as a credible person." Nor a particularly competent one. At one point, when asked whether she had an independent recollection of an alleged drug buy, Bright Eyes replied: "I don't have a photostatic record of memory, sir."

"It is troubling," Heller concluded, "that hundreds of thousands of dollars were paid out to drug dealers leading to no enforcement activity." Nevertheless, the Liquor Control Board, goaded by the city of Seattle to revoke Oscar's license, quickly threw out Heller's strongly worded ruling in favor of the McCoys and instead took Bright Eyes at her word.

Another targeted business was Uncle John's Tavern in the Rainier Valley neighborhood of Seattle. Owner John Clayton is a 40-year resident of Seattle, an Army veteran, and a retired employee of the U.S. Public Health Service. He had a spotless record of compliance with liquor laws until the city of Seattle filed an objection to his license renewal. He had never been charged with a drug violation and had cooperated with police to fight crime. Despite a petition of support signed by more than 100 neighbors and patrons of his tavern, the city launched a drug abatement action against Clayton in 1996.

King County Superior Court Judge Joseph Wesley, who also presided over the McCoys' abatement hearing, acknowledged the difficulty of balancing the "community's interest in combating drug traffic and an individual's right to operate his business free of government interference." The city decided to defer its case because alleged drug activity had ceased at Uncle John's. (Curiously, the cessation of alleged drug activity at Oscar's II has not resulted in a similar decision.) But by the time the city finally relented, Uncle John's had been strangled slowly to death. Clayton was forced to sell the business to defray his legal costs.

A courtroom exchange between Judge Wesley and Clayton's lawyer, Howard Pruzan, highlights the unfair expectations created by the abatement law:

Pruzan: "Honest to goodness, we want to help eradicate drug activity. Seriously, what can Mr. Clayton do? Supposing that he believes that someone in his parking lot is doing something suspicious. He certainly cannot make a citizen's arrest. He can call the police department. I am told by his security person that they have done that and that the police have not responded for three or four hours at a minimum. What in the world is he to do about this, Your Honor?"