"One-Strlke & You're Out!" Ordinance That Allowed City To Immediately Boot Unwitting Tenants & Temporarily Seize Innocent Landlords' Rental Property Over Suspected Gun Or Drug Activity On Premises That They Were Unaware Of Declared Unconstitutional; City Agrees To Cough Up $100K In Damages To 2 Renters, 3 Property Owners, Plus Victims' Legal Fees

In Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania recently announced:

• The city of Wilkes-Barre has agreed to stop enforcing its “one strike and you’re out” ordinance, which illegally authorized city officials to evict tenants immediately and prevent landlords from renting a property for six months if anyone is suspected of illegal activity involving drugs or guns on the premises, including third parties not on the lease.
  
  The agreement is part of a settlement of a January 2015 federal lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Pennsylvania on behalf of two tenants and three landlords. The tenants had been evicted from their homes after individuals who did not live with them and were not on the lease were accused of illegal drug activity. The landlords’ rental units were shut down for six months after police arrested the tenants for illegal drug or gun activity even though they had no knowledge of the alleged illegal activity.(1)
  
  “I’m happy the ordinance is no longer there,” said Adam Peters, a landlord whose Wilkes-Barre rental property was seized for six months under the ordinance. “It’s unfair to punish innocent tenants and landlords for the actions of other people.”
  
  The settlement also includes an entry of a judgment by the court striking down the one-strike ordinance as unconstitutional, an injunction prohibiting Wilkes-Barre from enforcing the ordinance, and $100,000 in damages [plus plaintiffs' legal fees].
  
  ***
  “We are pleased that Wilkes-Barre has agreed to stop enforcing the one-strike ordinance and to compensate the landlord and tenant plaintiffs who were harmed by it,” said Reggie Shuford, executive director of the ACLU-PA. “The ordinance was part of a disturbing trend of local governments using landlords to police the conduct of their tenants, and we hope this case will discourage other cities from passing similar ordinances.”
  
  The one-strike ordinance permitted city of Wilkes-Barre code enforcement officers to close a rental unit for six months if police suspected illegal drug or gun-related criminal activity in the rental unit, common areas or on the premises. There was no requirement that landlords or tenants had to have any knowledge of the illegal activity or any opportunity to stop it before the unit was closed.

Source: Wilkes-Barre to Stop Enforcing “One-Strike and You’re Out” Rental Ordinance to End ACLU-PA Lawsuit.

For the lawsuit, see Peters, et al. v. City of Wilkes-Barre.

Go here for a Wilkes-Barre "One-Strike" list of properties that were shut down by this stupid unconstitutional law.

-------------------------

(1) According to the lawsuit, "[a] rental unit is closed for six months – and thus stripped of its certificate of occupancy and occupancy license – whenever a code enforcement officer assigns a single “strike” to the property. Such closures bar all persons, including the landlord, from entering or using the property for any purpose during that period without express authorization from the City."

In one case, according to the lawsuit, one tenant was initially given all of ten minutes to retrieve her clothing. However, after an intervening radio call received by the cops at the scene and a short conversation, the cops decided to place the tenant under arrest instead, handcuffing her and taking her away. After being fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in a cell for a couple of hours, the tenant was released from custody without any explanation from the officers. The tenant has never been contacted by the police since that night. She did not receive a citation and was not charged with any crime.