Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2003 | 11:17 a.m.
Barbara Plascencia figures she's going to be fined.
The 41-year-old keno runner at The Orleans has one car with expired registration beside her North Las Vegas house, a broken-down car in the driveway, and a third that's running for now but leaking water. She expects it may soon need its own half of the driveway.
Come Thursday, however, Plascencia's car collection could put her at odds with City Hall.
A requirement to keep broken vehicles out of public view, either in a garage, or behind or beside a home, is part of one of five proposed laws the North Las Vegas City Council is scheduled to vote on Wednesday night.
If approved, the collection of so-called nuisance abatement laws would also require that residents get a free permit from the city before holding a garage or yard sale; residents would be limited to two yard sales a year instead of the four a year currently allowed; grass and weeds would have to be kept shorter than 8 inches; and some landscaping would be required on all yards.
Violators would face warnings, fines and, in extreme cases, jail time.
Some city officials say the proposed laws will help city code enforcement staff clean up North Las Vegas and will prevent neighborhoods from deteriorating into roadside flea markets or auto garages.
But opponents say the city is overstepping its authority.
"They cannot control your private property," said Plascencia, who lives with her four children on Samantha Court. "It's just not right."
Melissa Holl, 22, said the proposed rules sound a lot like the regulations one would find in a homeowner's association.
"We chose this house because there was no homeowner's association, but that sounds like a homeowner's association," she said. "That's why people move out of apartment complexes to houses, to have that kind of freedom."
Holl has been living at the corner of Rolls Royce Road and Aristotle Avenue in North Las Vegas with her husband and two children for about four months. They had a yard sale the weekend before last and Holl said residents should not be limited to two a year.
"This just takes your rights away," Holl said. "We pay $1,200 a month to live here. Aren't we entitled to do what we want here?"
No, they're not, others said. They say the issue is their right to enjoy their neighborhood the way it was when they moved in.
Monica Moses, who also lives on Aristotle, said having rules about maintaining lawns, limiting yard sales, and keeping broken down cars out of sight help ensure a cleaner looking neighborhood and protect everyone's property values.
"What you do inside your home is one thing. But what you do in the presence of others is another story," Moses, a 41-year-old UNLV student, said. "When you pick a neighborhood the first thing you notice is what it looks like."
North Las Vegas Mayor Michael Montandon said the proposed laws should help city staff head off problems.
"Like any other problem, a couple of people start doing it and their neighbors fight them for a while, but then they give up and join them," Montandon said.
The problem is that for some people their yard sales are really a business open every weekend, he said.
The mayor said in general the proposed laws are geared toward preventing problems rather than addressing a problem that stands out in any one city neighborhood.
"I'm sure a few people will get cleaned up," he said.
The proposed laws mirror many already in place in Las Vegas and Clark County.
"All the jurisdictions do pretty much the same thing," said James Foreman, who oversees code enforcement in the county as the county public response office manager. "Everything is pretty standard."
Las Vegas Neighborhood Response Manager David Semenza, who oversees code enforcement in the city, said North Las Vegas' new rules will "be very similar to what we have."
For example, both governments limit the number of yard sales residents can have in a year. The county allows six every six months and the city allows two a year. Neither Las Vegas nor the county requires residents to get a permit before holding a yard sale, but Foreman said that sounds like a good idea.
"The permits are a good way of tracking it," he said.
Foreman, who has been with the county for 24 years, said the new regulations being considered for North Las Vegas are very common across the country. He also said that he has come across other municipalities, mainly small towns, that already require permits for yard sales.
"Nuisance abatement laws are the best laws I've ever used," Foreman said. "They give you plenty of time to clean up, and appeal -- and they also give the jurisdictions a hammer."
In the county, as is proposed in North Las Vegas, a violator of the nuisance abatement laws would face misdemeanor fines and possible jail time, which in North Las Vegas would mean a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
However, before reaching that point, the violator would receive notices of the violation and time to fix it. Also, the law would give the city the power to fix the problem and bill the property owner for the work.
North Las Vegas Code Enforcement Manager Sheldon Klain said he pulled all of the proposed sections of the new laws from existing statutes in other cities nationwide.
In addition to bringing in new or stricter rules regarding lawn care, yard sales, and broken cars, the proposed laws will make the regulations easier to understand and therefore enforce, he said. This is because, while certain nuisance abatement rules might be addressed in other laws, such as rules regarding vacant buildings, the proposed laws will put all the related regulations in one place.
The other related laws to be voted on Wednesday include graffiti and sign laws.
The proposed graffiti law would prohibit the sale of spray paint to anyone under 18, which Klain said is already a state law. The North Las Vegas law would hold parents responsible for paying to clean up graffiti done by their children.
The proposed sign law is essentially the same as the existing law, except that it adds "other vehicles" to a section that prohibits using parked tractor-trailers as billboard or sign holders.
The council will also be presented with a new version of a city nuisances law that includes the other four proposed laws in it. Now, the city nuisances law only addresses odor nuisances, Klain said.
"This all relates to preserving neighborhoods," Klain said. "We have a lot of areas in the more mature areas of the city where we want to work with people to bring up their property values, and work to keep other neighborhoods from going bad."
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