By Liana Grey
POLICE RAIDED A MARIJUANA FARM SET UP IN A BRONX APARTMENT Photo credit: Norwood NewsOwners weeding out their dodgy tenants
POLICE RAIDED A MARIJUANA FARM SET UP IN A BRONX APARTMENT Photo credit: Norwood News
Not too long ago, Joseph Burden, a partner at the law firm Belkin Burden Wenig & Goldman, worked with the owner of a small apartment building who suspected one of his tenants was dealing drugs.
In a police raid, 85 pounds of weed were seized from the man’s apartment.
It wasn’t quite the five-story marijuana farm discovered in the Bronx last week, where over 500 plants, some as tall as seven feet, grew throughout a dilapidated brick building, but the case was still a serious one.
“The landlord lived in the building, and knew something was going on,” said Burden, who advises many of the city’s major property owners.
The hallways reeked of pot, and the landlord often noticed streams of people heading to the drug dealer’s apartment.
Burden’s client called the police, and several months later, officers showed up with arrest warrants. “They broke into the apartment and they found baggies, fridges, and scales. It was pretty evident what was going on,” said Burden. The case went to court, and the dealer was sentenced to three years in prison.
JOE BURDEN For legal and business reasons alike, it’s in a multifamily landlord’s best interest to ensure that criminals are evicted, either by bringing the case to local housing court or filling out papers provided by the District Attorney’s office.
“Hypothetically, let’s assume there’s a drug dealer in a building,” said Burden, who handles about two cases involving criminal activity each month. “If the owner is aware of that and someone gets attacked and beaten up by the strangers entering the building, the owner can be held liable.”
In addition, there’s a risk that residents will cite a landlord’s warranty of habitability, and withhold rent until a neighbor’s suspicious behavior is investigated.
“The landlord is supposed to provide tenants with habitable apartments,” Burden said. And that, of course, includes maintaining a building’s safety. When neighbors report suspicions of drug dealing and other illegal activities, Burden advises the management team to get statements in writing that can potentially be used later in court.
“Then you ask the building personnel, a super, what’s going on,” said Burden. “That’s where you get most of your information from.”
Beyond potential danger to other tenants, property owners have a lot to weigh before calling in law enforcement: “Is the tenant otherwise a troublemaker? Are they paying low rent? Is their apartment rent stabilized? These are things the landlord considers before going to the police,” said Burden.
Of course, proving a tenant is a drug dealer rather than a recreational marijuana user, or that a resident is running a brothel or exotic pet smuggling business from his or her home, can be tough until the police get involved.
Many years ago, Burden said that a brothel had been set up in one of his client’s buildings, under the guise of a massage parlor. “We sent an investigator in, and he was ‘serviced,’ let’s call it. We brought the case to court,” Burden said. “That happens occasionally, but it’s really the drugs and counterfeiting that are typical cases.”
When a tenant is selling counterfeit designer goods, it can be tempting to turn a blind eye. The owners of buildings along Canal Street, where the sale of knockoff handbags are particularly prevalent, often evict illegal businesses only after police raids shut them down, Burden said.
“You’ve got a good commercial tenant paying rent, and then you’ve got to get rid of a tenant who never bothered you,” Burden explained of some landlord’s reluctance to report the counterfeiters.
To ensure that landlords don’t wind up with such a dilemma in the first place, David Levy, a principal at the brokerage firm Adams & Co, likes to screen prospective tenants.
Adams & Co lists a handful of spaces near Herald Square, where counterfeit handbag sellers have been setting up shop in recent years after being pushed out of Chinatown. Some vendors lease entire floors, transforming Garment District buildings into virtual warehouses.
DAVID LEVY In one of the city’s largest raids, officers removed $12 million worth of phony North Face, Sean John, and RocaWear items from five floors of 1158 Broadway, near 27th Street.
“Inside, they found not one Aladdin’s cave of counterfeiting, but hundreds, all stored in small, subdivided areas of the space,” wrote Tim Phillips in the book Knockoff: the Deadly Trade in Counterfeit Goods.So far, Levy’s clients have managed to avoid leasing space to illegal vendors. “I think the key is being very hands-on,” Levy explained. “We have a rule in our company that supers don’t show space. We have a licensed broker go out and meet every broker and every tenant and then I’ll go see the tenants’ existing space, so that we know what’s going.”
