The people in the 1000 block of Friendship Lane in West River used to say the area felt more like a busy parking lot than a neighborhood. Then the state ordered Wilbur Morgan's broken-down home destroyed.
"It's incredible," said Joan Collison, 42, who lives just past Mr. Morgan's home. "We don't have the fear. We don't have the traffic. The children are able to play now without having to worry about people drunk or high on crack."
Anne Arundel County State's Attorney Frank R. Weathersbee has used Maryland's 4-year-old Nuisance Abatement Law liberally the past three years.
In July 1992, he had a house in the 3500 block of Spring Road
demolished. In August 1994, a bulldozer destroyed William Spring's house in the 800 block of Mount Zion Marlboro Road. Two months later, Mr. Morgan's house on Friendship Lane met the same fate.
Those three houses "were absolute sheds. They were real dumps," said Kristin Riggin, a spokeswoman for the state's attorney's office.
The state's attorney only ordersdemolition when the cost of renovating a house exceeds the cost of bulldozing it. In October, Mr. Weathersbee ordered a house on Carver Street in Annapolis boarded up instead of torn down. The city of Annapolis gave the owner a $21,000 loan for renovations.
The Nuisance Abatement Law, brainchild of Judge Jamey Hochberg Weitzman of the Baltimore District Court, allows community groups or a state's or county's attorney to sue a landlord or homeowner. Judges can order property to be cleaned, decide who can and can't live in the residence and order the home demolished.
Judge Weitzman came up with the idea five years ago, during her stint as an assistant state's attorney in Baltimore. She often met with community groups and could feel their frustration as they tried to tackle problems -- often drug-related -- in their neighborhoods.
"Individual neighborhoods were unable to get the relief they needed," said Judge Weitzman.
The problem sometimes was not only drug dealers and addicts but the houses and apartments they used. Judge Weitzman wanted a way for community groups to go after landlords who tolerated such activity. She said she met with a group of legal experts and "wrote a law that makes sense for Maryland."
The law breezed through the General Assembly in 1991, the year Judge Weitzman was appointed to the District Court. Since then, many Anne Arundel County residents have applauded its use.
Those living near two of the demolished houses agreed that their neighborhoods are safer, quieter, less congested and cleaner since the drug houses were destroyed.
Debbie Haas, who lives in the 800 block of Mount Zion Marlboro Road across from where Mr. Springs' house was, remembers living in fear of her neighbor and his transient company. She forbade her three young children from playing on the front lawn. Ms. Haas called the demolition "great."
"We were all for it," she said.
Down the street from Ms. Haas, Alic Moreland recalls waking up one night to the face of a stranger standing under her bedroom window. He had mistakenly come to the wrong house. "It frightened me," said Mrs. Moreland, 69.
She was glad to his see his dwelling go. "I felt sorry for him," she said. "But really, it was his own fault because he shouldn't allow that stuff to go on in his house."
On Friendship Lane, where sunlight breaks through overhanging willow trees, things are quiet. There's no longer a constant flow of shabby cars, strangers and loud music, say neighbors. The Morgan house is gone.
"I was glad that was taken care of," said Mary Heard, who lives across the street. "I have a son whose 16 and my little one here, and I didn't want them subject to that."
Mabel Barnett, 58, and her daughter, Kandi Barnett, 37, aren't as happy about the nuisance law. Last month Mr. Weathersbee filed a complaint declaring Mrs. Barnett's house and her daughter's trailer in the 5200 block of Sands Road nuisances because of drug dealing that goes on nearby.
The women and some of their neighbors say police and prosecutors have erred. The Barnetts say they aren't to blame. The case will be heard in September in District Court.
The nuisance law has been applied with at least as much success and even greater frequency in Baltimore. Lawyers for the Community Anti-Drug Assistance Project (CADAP), which is run by the state's attorney's office, have filed 579 cases against landlords. Twenty-nine of the cases are pending resolution through negotiation with landlords, 100 remain active, 198 have been handled through eviction or other action by landlords, and 234 were closed because the charges could not be substantiated, according to a CADAP progress report issued July 27.
Only 18 cases have gone to court, and the landlords have lost every one, said Angela Gibson-Hughes, a spokeswoman for the project.
