Santa Rosa enlists drug abatement plan to end ‘horrific public nuisance’

Once considered a hive of unwanted activity, the two-story duplex at 2083 and 2085 Cooper Drive now stands quiet and empty.

Plywood shutters its windows and garage — and its doors are dead-bolted shut. Copies of a judge’s order allowing the city of Santa Rosa to seize the property dot the façade like armored sentinels.

For more than a year, this residence, which sits just east of the fairgrounds and south of Bennett Valley Road, was the site of hundreds of calls for alleged nuisance and narcotics complaints that so rattled the surrounding neighborhood parents refused to let their young kids play outside.

Assistant City Attorney Adam Abel said in a court filing that people were “afraid to even go outside of their homes to retrieve their mail, or now limit it to once a week, for fear of whom they may encounter.”

Following months of alleged narcotics trafficking on the property, Santa Rosa police descended and arrested the owner and another person. Then on the last day of September, officers watched as the home was boarded up.

The city of Santa Rosa had used an uncommon civil process to seize the house and fine the homeowner, David Alan Vicini, nearly $50,000.

Vicini is unrelated to the well-known business executive of the same name.

‘Targeting the house’

City attorneys brought a lawsuit against Vicini, contending he was enabling narcotics trafficking on his property. They based the suit on state health and safety codes, rather than criminal charges.

Called drug abatement, the goal of this kind of procedure, according to Abel, is to stop the crimes at their root, especially when arresting those believed to be responsible doesn’t solve the problem.

“We’re targeting the house itself,“ Abel said.

The duplex on Cooper Drive is not the first home the city has shuttered after finding it to be the epicenter of hardcore drug activity.

Abel, who said he has litigated about five of these cases against homeowners in Santa Rosa, estimated that they happen about once a year.

Notably, in 2017, the city shut down a nuisance house on Richmond Drive that had allegedly been embroiled in criminal drug activity since the 1980s.

While a powerful tool at municipalities’ disposal, drug abatement cases are used sparingly, officials said, because they are time-consuming and resource-intensive, requiring three city agencies — the police department, city attorney and code enforcement division — to collaborate to successfully bring a case to court.

“You’re looking at hundreds of hours and resources and labor that’s spent resolving these issues,” said Santa Rosa Police Lt. Dan Marincik, who oversees investigations.

More than 235 calls

Since the beginning of 2021 the police department has received more than 235 calls about the house on Cooper Drive. And since at least 2019, the department added, the property was a known “flop house.”

David McDonald, president of the Gordon Ranch Homeowners Association, in a declaration submitted to Sonoma County Superior Court stated that numerous members of the 98-member HOA watched people leaving the property with nondescript packages or bags only to return a short time later empty-handed.

He said they also saw “well-orchestrated” queues of cars entering and exiting the duplex’s garage.

“For well over a year now, the residents of the association have been subjected to a horrific public nuisance all at the hands of a single, thoughtless property owner, David Alan Vicini,” he said in court records.

Press Democrat attempts to reach Vicini have been unsuccessful. Phone numbers associated with him were disconnected, wrong or rang unanswered. He did not live at another house he owns, according to the person who answered the door on Saturday.

Police investigators confirmed that they received dozens of calls about “round the clock” drug trafficking at the house, and that some of the license plates were traced to people who had been charged with or convicted of narcotics-related crimes in the past.

On March 8, the Santa Rosa Police Narcotics Investigations Team obtained a warrant to search the property. Det. Nicholas Vlhandreas wrote in a civil complaint that upon knocking on the door and announcing themselves, officers heard movement, but no one answered.

Police used a battering ram, entered and arrested Vicini and one other person.

Inside the home, officers reported finding drug paraphernalia, as well as 7.1 grams of methamphetamine and 25.2 grams of fentanyl, Vlhandreas said.

Vicini and the other person were later charged with possession of controlled substances with intent to sell.

At this point, Abel began preparing his lawsuit against Vicini under California’s drug abatement laws. The specialized public nuisance statutes, originally approved in 1972, make landlords civilly responsible for illegal drug activities on their properties. Many states across the country have similar laws.

A city bringing a lawsuit under these statutes must show evidence of drug dealing. But the burden of proof is lower than if the city were to attempt to hold a property owner criminally liable for that activity, making it a more accessible tool to municipalities and law enforcement in shuttering homes, issuing fines and shutting down narcotics operations.

Even if they could prove that Vicini was criminally liable, officials said, that wouldn’t necessarily have solved the underlying problem.

“A lot of times, what you see with these nuisance houses is that we’re out there, we’ve made arrests, but the problem still persists,” said Marincik, who heads the Santa Rosa Police Department investigations unit.

Getting ‘creative’

Five days after Vicini was arrested and released, according to court documents, the police found someone using fentanyl on the front doorstep of Vicini’s Cooper Drive property.

“Ultimately, to resolve the issue, it’s difficult to rely on criminal charges. We need to be creative, we need to see what tools we have available to us,” Marincik said.

On March 30, Code Enforcement Officer Megan Lackie served Vicini with a seven-day “cease and desist” letter. Attached was a draft copy of Abel’s drug abatement complaint, which he hoped he would not have to file, if Vicini agreed to work with him to stop the illicit activities.

“Upon hand-serving the complaint on him, Vicini’s only response was ‘I’m sorry,’” Lackie said in court documents.

According to police, two hours after he was served, neighbors reported that his home was again “open for business.”

A Sonoma County Superior Court judge allowed authorities to take control of the house in September.

Alongside the one-year closure of the duplex, Vicini was fined $48,478, which included $25,000 for violating health and safety laws, $21,125 for legal fees and $2,353 for code enforcement costs. California Victim Restitution Fund will receive $12,500 of the judgment.

You can reach Staff Writer Emily Wilder at 707-521-5337 or emily.wilder@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @vv1lder.