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11-28-2006, 03:38 AM
Sun, Nov. 26, 2006

Cities charging for excess cop calls to recoup costs

KRISTEN REED - The Orlando Sentinel

DAYTONA BEACH - The empty beer cans, junky furniture and dilapidated appliances littering Daytona Beach Trailer Park are an invitation for prostitutes and drug dealers to set up shop.

For city government, the resulting code violations and frequent calls to law enforcement create an expensive nuisance.

In cities like Daytona Beach, the solution may be dusting off a rarely used law directed at property owners' checkbooks.

"This measure is to tell them, 'Hey, you're costing the city a lot of money' and make them pay for that service they are taking away from other parts of the city," Daytona Beach Officer Paul Stelter said.

The trailer park on North Beach Street has racked up the largest bill - $9,600 - since the police department started levying fees earlier this summer against those who create excessive calls for police.

Daytona Beach and Sanford are among the cities already using fines to make property owners clean up their acts.

Other agencies, including the Seminole County Sheriff's Office, think such policies deter residents from calling about problems.

A professor in public administration and policy said the ordinances may not recoup much money, but they do get violators to change their ways.

"It does send a message," said Lance deHaven-Smith with the Askew School for Public Policy and Administration at Florida State University.

He said the policies are gaining popularity as another tool for cities to combat crime and clean up the streets.

Daytona Beach's Stelter, one of two officers who handles his agency's nuisance calls, said the city has had a fee for excessive police calls on the books since the late 1980s "when spring break got out of control" - but was never used.

When Chief Mike Chitwood joined the force this summer, he saw the ordinance as another tool to clean up crime.

Once a property hits the magic number - 50 incidents or 35 man hours in six months, or 75 incidents or 50 man hours in a year's time - the owner can be fined $42 an hour for an officer's time, plus an administrative fee.

The agency isn't penalizing people who call for help or ask for extra patrols. They only calculate the calls that involve a violation of the law, such as reports of a drug deal, Stelter said.

Several businesses already have racked up fines exceeding $6,000.

At Daytona Beach Trailer Park, the officers are trying to work with the owners to find a solution.

"They want to clean up this property," Officer J.T. Thomas said.

A representative for the trailer park, Elaine Pugh, said the recent bill was a wake-up call for the owners.

"I'm sure they knew there was a problem," she said. "I'm not sure they were aware of how excessive it was."

She said police and code enforcement have offered several suggestions to help clean up the area, such as fencing the property, removing condemned trailers and banning outdoor drinking.

"We're trying to turn this place around," Pugh said. "It's going to be a long road . . . but as long as we work with the police and the city we can make it work.

"I just want their quality of life to be better than it is. No one should have to live with drug dealers, crack heads and prostitutes running around."

For problem properties that don't heed suggestions or fines, officers have another tool.

The city's nuisance abatement board can impose sanctions as severe as shutting down a business.

Already, officers say property owners are getting the message. The Mar-Lo Mart was a hot spot for drug dealing until the city closed it down for a month, Stelter said. Since it reopened, officers no longer see people hanging out in the parking lot.

The Streamline Hotel, where NASCAR was founded, was home to all sorts of criminal activity and had more than 100 code-enforcement violations. After being hit with a $9,000 fine and other sanctions, Stelter said, the owners cleaned it up and "haven't had any issues there lately."

While financial penalties might work in several areas, Seminole County sheriff's Lt. Dennis Lemma said his agency is going in another direction.

"We want to encourage people to contact the Sheriff's Office," he said. "The last thing we want to do is look at repeat calls for service as a negative thing."

The city of Sanford, however, implemented a measure similar to Daytona Beach's, which includes fining property owners after three police calls in a 30-day time frame.

The ordinance covers calls ranging from loud music to yard clutter to drug use.


I had never heard of this till today. I think I agree with Seminole on the issue, though I also see the point of why they would do that. There is an upside and a downside to everything though.

12-02-2006, 01:04 AM
This is just an example of how this agency treats citizens. They will hold your hand, raise your child, do the job of other officials within the county are paid to do.

You know what? They preach "quality of life", but a law enforcement agency can only do so much WITHOUT the authority to do so. Anyone who enters this profession should ENFORCE THE LAW, if there is no law to enforce, then it is not the agency's business. This agency tries to take over the world and solve each and every single problem the community has, regardless if they have the authority to do so. What had been created is an community that calls for ANYTHING!!!! Broken water pipe in their house, dog is sick, kids making noise playing in the yard, cat stuck behind the dryer, dog drowned in the pool for CPR purposes, the list goes on and on and on.

This agency needs to spend more time reforming the State Attorney's Office and the Judges in the Circuit and County Courts.

You know why no one responds to these threads? Do you think that the deputies are not internet saavy? Wrong...they are terrified of the administration, which is well established when they are hired.

12-04-2006, 05:46 PM
Once a good lawyer gets a hold of this and files suit against the Sheriff's Office this practice will come to an end. There is no way to prevent Police from being called.

If you don't want to receive calls do what every other police agency does. Send in more officers to the problem area's and clean them up. What a bunch of crap.

12-04-2006, 07:25 PM
The Seminole County Sheriff's Office IS NOT charging people for calling. They are the ones who have said they would never want to discourage people from calling.

12-05-2006, 11:32 PM
Cities' fines discourage calls for help

Our position: Residents should feel free to call police as often as they are needed.

Posted December 3, 2006

Law enforcement can be a frustrating pursuit.

Officers tell motorists not to speed but most don't listen, so people needlessly die. They say lock your doors, but people still leave their valuables vulnerable to thieves.

Police respond when called. Their warnings are ignored. They get called out again, and the cycle continues.

Frustrating, indeed. But you don't break the cycle by discouraging people from making the calls, as do the laws in Daytona Beach and Sanford that fine property owners for excessive police calls.

In Daytona Beach, the charge is $42 an hour plus an administrative fee once officers have responded to more than 50 incidents or spent more than 35 hours at one location in six months.

In Sanford, a property owner can be fined $250 after three police calls in 30 days. After that, fines can be assessed at $500 per visit.

The idea is to get the owners to heed authorities' advice when they have been told how to clean up their properties and make them less attractive to lawbreakers.

A barkeeper, for example, might be told to add more lighting in the parking lot and an apartment landlord could be advised to crack down on his tenants' outdoor drinking.

Failure to follow through could mean an escalation of problems at their properties drug sales outside the bar or fist fights at the apartments, perhaps. The police would get called to the locations over and over again, and the property owners eventually would be fined.

But it's better for the barkeeper and the landlord to call the police than to confront troublemakers on their own just to avoid a hefty bill from the city.

Most calls to police come from neighbors complaining about nuisance properties. But whether the calls come from neighbors or the property owner, if too many are made, the owner could be penalized.

And if they are not carefully monitored, these policies can give angry tenants and customers a way to punish the landlord or business owner simply by calling authorities until the fines start to accumulate.

Those concerns and others have kept most cities from levying such fines even though it's legal to do so. Mount Dora, Clermont and Kissimmee are among the Central Florida cities that don't charge for excessive police calls. Seminole County doesn't charge either.

"The last thing we want to do is look at repeat calls for service as a negative thing," Sheriff's Lt. Dennis Lemma explained.

Besides, cities already have penalties for those who violate codes. If apartments are too crowded or parking areas too dark, the codes should be enforced and the owners should be cited. But local governments should not push people toward anarchy by fining them for too many police calls.

Just wanted to post the sort of "update" to the story. This was located in the so called "Opinion" section of the Orlando Sentinel's website.

03-25-2007, 06:51 AM
Cities' fines discourage calls for help

Our position: Residents should feel free to call police as often as they are needed.

Posted December 3, 2006

Law enforcement can be a frustrating pursuit.

Officers tell motorists not to speed but most don't listen, so people needlessly die. They say lock your doors, but people still leave their valuables vulnerable to thieves.

Police respond when called. Their warnings are ignored. They get called out again, and the cycle continues.

Frustrating, indeed. But you don't break the cycle by discouraging people from making the calls, as do the laws in Daytona Beach and Sanford that fine property owners for excessive police calls.

In Daytona Beach, the charge is $42 an hour plus an administrative fee once officers have responded to more than 50 incidents or spent more than 35 hours at one location in six months.

In Sanford, a property owner can be fined $250 after three police calls in 30 days. After that, fines can be assessed at $500 per visit.

The idea is to get the owners to heed authorities' advice when they have been told how to clean up their properties and make them less attractive to lawbreakers.

A barkeeper, for example, might be told to add more lighting in the parking lot and an apartment landlord could be advised to crack down on his tenants' outdoor drinking.

Failure to follow through could mean an escalation of problems at their properties drug sales outside the bar or fist fights at the apartments, perhaps. The police would get called to the locations over and over again, and the property owners eventually would be fined.

But it's better for the barkeeper and the landlord to call the police than to confront troublemakers on their own just to avoid a hefty bill from the city.

Most calls to police come from neighbors complaining about nuisance properties. But whether the calls come from neighbors or the property owner, if too many are made, the owner could be penalized.

And if they are not carefully monitored, these policies can give angry tenants and customers a way to punish the landlord or business owner simply by calling authorities until the fines start to accumulate.

Those concerns and others have kept most cities from levying such fines even though it's legal to do so. Mount Dora, Clermont and Kissimmee are among the Central Florida cities that don't charge for excessive police calls. Seminole County doesn't charge either.

"The last thing we want to do is look at repeat calls for service as a negative thing," Sheriff's Lt. Dennis Lemma explained.

Besides, cities already have penalties for those who violate codes. If apartments are too crowded or parking areas too dark, the codes should be enforced and the owners should be cited. But local governments should not push people toward anarchy by fining them for too many police calls.

Just wanted to post the sort of "update" to the story. This was located in the so called "Opinion" section of the Orlando Sentinel's website.

The contributor offered at least two very good points here... while the property owners may technically have the authority to "police" their tenants they lack the training and intel necessary to constructively effect positive changes. They can only threaten to fine and/or evict them, the latter of which is notoriously difficult under FL law, especially for low-income properties. Threatening to notify LE is hollow when both parties know of the financial penalties involved. Calling in cops with badges, guns and arrest powers will (IMHO) be significantly more effective. In addition, a somewhat savvy bad guy (rare but they do unfortunately exist) can certainly use nuisance calls, actual or implied, to keep the property owner at bay for a considerable amount of time.