By Craig Loy
Albuquerque City Councilor
The editorial "Councilors Cast Too Wide A Net" totally misses the purpose and intent of my bill to strengthen the city's nuisance abatement ordinance. The bill will in actuality eliminate life-threatening nuisances that interfere with the quality of life and safety of Albuquerque's law-abiding citizens.
The amendment to the nuisance abatement ordinance is intended to address nuisance occurrences that thus far have been beyond the scope of the city's enforcement authority.
The original ordinance defined nuisances in the context of narcotics and prostitution. In fact, dangerous nuisances can encompass other crimes and harbor other criminal activities as well.
The Blue Spruce Lounge is an excellent example. Numerous criminal activities, including murder and rape, occurred on that property. Despite repeated calls for police and emergency service to the establishment, management made no substantial effort to mitigate the violent conditions and it remained open and a threat to public health, safety and welfare.
The city could take no action to force closure of the Blue Spruce and abate such activities because the crimes occurring there were not considered nuisances under the existing ordinance. The Blue Spruce is now closed— only after the city was forced to take other more expensive and time-consuming measures to accomplish that task.
My intent is to provide the city with the ability to take meaningful civil action against nuisance properties, primarily commercial, that continue to allow nuisance activity to occur thereby posing a persistent threat to public welfare.
The bill also adds properties involved with calls for service to the definition of public nuisance. Large apartment property owners have too long relied on the Albuquerque Police Department to perform the duties of private security firms.
As a fiscal conservative, I intend to force these property owners to assume more responsibility for the safety of their property and their tenants and to reduce their dependence on APD response to loud parties, loud music and other complaints.
I concur the city has "no business trying to expand beyond the basic services that ought to be (its) focus," as stated in the editorial.
However, providing for the general welfare of its citizenry, which is what this bill allows, is arguably the most basic responsibility of local government.
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