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Fall Newsletter
September, 1999
Pay Phones and The Corner ----
Revisited
The open air drug market at the corner of
Fayette and Monroe streets has been the subject of a book and now a six part HBO
special. It is notorious. There are many factors which contribute to why a
particular location is more conducive to an open air drug market than other
locations, e.g. the accessibility of drive through and walk through traffic, the
ability to evade police by dashing into alleys, vacant houses or corner stores,
and communications -- that is public pay phones. On 'The Corner' there were six
pay phones --- none of which had a permit.
Through the efforts of Community Law Center
attorneys Kristine Dunkerton and Steven Buvel,
the six illegal pay phones at 'The Corner' were finally removed. Due to the
attention drawn to illegal pay phones, legislation imposing fines for installing
public pay phones without a permit was enacted. And, the City has established a
system for monitoring and removing pay phones on the public right of way which
do not have the required permit. The new system was tested when two of the pay
phones were illegally re-installed on the same corner. Due to the Law Center's
immediate notification to the Dept of Public Works, the new phones were removed
by the City within 24 hours. The Law Center is now seeking to have the owners
fined under the newly enacted legislation. In addition, the Police Department
set up a constant vigil at 'The Corner', a Sergeant in a patrol car, causing the
open air drug market to move and re-assemble in a number of different places for
the first time in many years. With help form the Police Dept and Law Center
staff, the Fayette Street Outreach and Franklin Square community organizations
have formed a Citizens on Patrol for this area to keep the open air drug market
moving out of their community.
PeoplesLaw
ProjectReceives Recognition
The PeoplesLaw Project provides training for
about 1,000 people a year on how to be an advocate for themselves, their
neighbors and their community, and in substantive areas of the law such as
domestic violence and guardianship.
Kim Bivens has been the
Director of the PeoplesLaw Project since its inception in 1994. In the last six
months, she and the Project have received acknowledgment of the contributions of
the Project to peoples lives.
The first award was from HEBCAC for the
Project's work with the One Stop Career Center. The Center is an outreach
-project designed to help participants with job readiness skills, help with
obtaining a GED and help with finding a job. For approximately three years, the
PeoplesLaw Project has provided advocacy, educational legal work shops and job
development training to participants of the One Stop Career Center.
The second award came for the work of the
Project with the Greater Baltimore Medical Center - Family Support Center. The
PeoplesLaw Project has helped families through landlord tenant disputes, step by
step process of 'how to get a rent escrow', eviction prevention and advocacy
techniques to obtain services for themselves.
A 'Barber Shop, Beauty
Shop, Tatoo Parlor- by appointment only, and Hand Car Wash' All in One. Is This
a Business You Would Want in Your Neighborhood?
The residents of Patterson Park and the
surrounding communities did not want it, particularly not at a building which
had 400 , mostly drug related, calls for police service. The first issue was the
hand car wash permit which had made it through the BMZA approval process. The
Law Center team of Terry Shaffer (now with City Code
Enforcement) and Keith Milligan appealed this decision to the
Circuit Court and won a reversal and remand of the BMZA decision. The
community's concern was that a 'hand car wash' on a corner which already was a
'drug corner provided a great deal of cover for loitering, flagging of vehicles,
brief conversations and transactions. The perfect set up for a drive through
drug market. The court issued a seven page opinion which addressed among other
issues, the question of whether an individual taxpayer who did not participate
at the hearing below had standing to appeal a zoning decision.
The second issue was the addition of the tattoo
parlor. With only 24 hours of notice of the BMZA hearing, Law Center staff
prepared a successful challenge to the request for a permit. The three community
associations in the area were unanimously opposed to the 'by appointment only
enterprise'. Several residents provided strong live testimony, including direct
observations of drug dealing made as part of Patterson Place's 'Pooches on
Patrol'.
Unable to open links e-mail to
mail@communitylaw.org
To add your neighborhood to our links
page
click here
The Community Law Center Website is under
construction please watch for updates
Last Updated:
September 25, 2006 ©
2006 Community Law Center, Inc. Baltimore, Maryland
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The Community Law Center, Inc.
