NLV considers ordinance to keep offenders out

Diana Sahagun

Tuesday, April 25, 2000 | 11:07 a.m.

North Las Vegas officials want to push drug offenders out of crime-ridden neighborhoods and are counting on a proposed ordinance to help.

City staff is drafting an "order out" ordinance designed to keep drug offenders arrested in neighborhoods out of the area for up to a year.

The neighborhood being proposed -- known as "Comstock Acres" is bounded by Carey Avenue, Lake Mead Boulevard, Comstock Drive and Simmons Street.

Under the proposed ordinance, a judge can offer misdemeanor drug offenders a suspended sentence if the defendant agrees to stay out of the order-out corridor for six months to a year.

If they violate the agreement, they will be sentenced to at least 30 days in jail. Exceptions, however, could be made for offenders who live, work, attend church or need to access social or medical services in the area.

Order-out ordinances are already in place in the city of Las Vegas and Clark County. They have been criticized by the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada as not being constitutional.

Part of the problem with the current statutes used by police is that they aren't always effective to deter drug activity, Lt. Ed Finizie, a North Las Vegas Police spokesman, said.

"The only statutes we have right now are misdemeanors; we can cite them for loitering with the purpose of illegal narcotics activity," he said. "It's not a very strong tool."

The maximum penalty under the current statute is six months in jail, which Finizie admitted would be considered stiff. The maximum fine is $1,000, but that doesn't always do much to deter crime, Finizie said.

"People who are engaging in narcotics activity generally aren't really worried about going to jail, the most important thing to them at the time is getting narcotics," he said, adding that the city had 788 drug arrests from 1998 to 1999, according to Uniform Crime Reporting statistics.

Of that, approximately 5 percent comes from Comstock Acres, at 40 arrests, said Sandra Sawyer from the North Las Vegas Crime Analysis Division.

North Las Vegas Municipal Court Judge Warren Van Landschoot said the ordinance will be a deterrent to young people because of the threat of an automatic jail sentence.

"A lot of times younger persons get caught up with the older crowd ... if we can rehabilitate this person by using this new law, we can help kids that are bending that way, but aren't all the way over yet," he said.

Clark County commissioners passed an order-out corridor last September, drawing the boundary lines west of Maryland Parkway, south of Sahara Avenue and north of Russell Road, based on drug-related statistics provided by Metro Police.

The city of Las Vegas passed an order-out ordinance in 1996 dealing with prostitutes, which includes neighborhoods along Fremont Street and extends north to Washington Avenue. The city expanded the corridor in 1998 and added drug dealing to the crimes that won't be tolerated.