Evicted tenants told when to stay in until they get out

By Timothy Pratt

Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2007 | 7:16 a.m.

Jennifer Ellis got a note in her mailbox a few weeks ago, telling her when she could go out at night.

Ellis is 33, long past the age when others could tell her when she had to be home. The note, though, suggested otherwise.

Experts who read the notice, t itled "Mandatory outside hours and 86 off of property," say it basically imposes a curfew on all of the tenants at Buena Vista Spring s' 272 apartments, plus anyone passing through.

Anybody found outside after 10 p.m. on weeknights and after midnight on weekends will "receive one warning and then face being locked up by security and the North Las Vegas police department," the note read.

"There are no exceptions to this mandatory ruling and (it) is effective immediately," it continues.

The idea, said John Wooldridge, an official with property owner Creative Choice West, was to "give security tools they need" to curb crime. Only weeks before, a 15-year-old was shot to death at Buena Vista.

The site has been in the news recently because the Housing and Urban Development Department stopped paying subsidies for tenants at 233 of the apartments July 1 because of what the agency said were bad conditions, forcing about 800 people to move.

"We live in such an environment over here, we didn't even think twice about (the notice)," Ellis said.

The only problem, the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada says, is that it's against the law.

The owners, according to Allen Lichtenstein, an attorney with the ACLU, are "acting without any concept of constitutional rights."

"This clearly is an illegal and unenforceable edict," he said, adding that he had never heard of a private property owner issuing such a notice to tenants.

William Sousa, a professor of criminal justice at UNLV, also said he knew of no similar case. Crime-fighting curfews, usually involving minors, have been imposed elsewhere as a result of partnerships between residents and police, Sousa said.

Although the notice seemed to imply that North Las Vegas Police endorsed the idea, department spokesman Tim Bedwell said: "We're not going to be locking anybody up for violating any of their rules.

"We don't enforce their property regulations unless they're covered by a state or municipal statute," he added.

Wooldridge, speaking from Florida, hadn't seen the notice. He said that leases at Buena Vista didn't refer specifically to curfews. "But there is language that empowers management to set the rules," he added.

The intention of the notice, Wooldridge said, was to cut back on loitering as a step toward deterring drugs and crime.

"We're simply trying to make the property safer," he said.

Audrey Spencer, regional business manager for Creative Choice, insisted the notice was not a curfew, but rather a reminder of trespassing laws already on the books.

"There's no curfew here," Spencer said. "There is, however, an accounting of tenants. People can't be outside in common areas after a certain hour, or they're trespassing."

In the month before the notice was issued there was a murder weekly at Buena Vista, she said.

"If you don't have (the rule) ... some mom's going to be crying about their son who's dead," she said.

HUD spokesman Larry Bush said owners "have a right to impose a safe environment - but a good owner will work with police to see that it's done appropriately and choose the best approach."

Lichtenstein said Buena Vista's rule would be nearly impossible to enforce, and wondered whether someone could be warned or arrested for smoking a cigarette or while coming home from a night shift.

Wooldridge said he trusted his security staff. "I have a lot of confidence in their discretion," he said.

He didn't know, though, whether any tenants or visitors had been warned or locked up since the policy took effect July 2.

Ellis said she has seen a lot of drug dealing and heard gunshots more than once in the 15 months she has been living at Buena Vista with her 9-year-old twin sons.

"If we go outside to smoke a cigarette (at night), it's amazing what you see," she said.

The chaos has lessened a bit in the last month, she said.

Even so, she said she's used to the presence of police at the sprawling, gritty complex, and saw the curfew as more of the same.

"If I was living in a gated community with a $200,000 home, I'd be like, 'Wait a minute, you can't do that,' " she said.

"But this is part of what happens when you live in low-income housing."