As deputies drive out drug dealers and prostitutes, the Sheriff's Office vows they will not be allowed to return.
By ANNE LINDBERG
Published May 26, 2004
LEALMAN - A promised crackdown on prostitution and drugs in a Lealman Heights neighborhood continued over the weekend with 14 more arrests.
In less than a week, sheriff's deputies have picked up at least 32 people on charges ranging from drug possession and prostitution to assault.
But the arrests also are emblematic of a coming change in the way the Sheriff's Office deals with such complaints, department spokesman Tim Goodman said Tuesday.
"This brought a lot of stuff to light which is going to help us," Goodman said. "What they're doing in Lealman, they're going to be doing in the rest of the county now. It turned out to be a good thing."
The department is working on a long-range plan, called the Lealman Safer Community Coalition, to make sure the drug dealers and hookers do not return once they've been shoved out.
Part of that, Goodman said, will be to increase the number of deputies covering the area.
"What amazed me is the amount of manpower that has been thrown into this," said Ray Neri, president of the Lealman Community Association, who went for a ride Tuesday with one of the area's community police officers.
"I'm very impressed that they threw this much effort and manpower into this situation. It's got to have an effect. Long term, it's got to have an effect."
But in the end, Neri said, the neighbors and the community association will have to remain vigilant to make sure drug dealers and hookers do not regain a foothold once they're gone from the area.
Residents living along 52nd Avenue N between 34th and 37th streets last week had complained to public officials that their neighborhood was being torn apart by drug dealing and prostitutes and that the Sheriff's Office had ignored their calls for help.
Parents told stories of gunshots and of children finding crack pipes. Chief Deputy Jim Coats vowed a response.
Within hours of a meeting last week attended by Lealman residents, Pinellas County Commissioner Ken Welch, Assistant County Administrator Gay Lancaster and representatives of the Sheriff's Office, deputies made 10 arrests. More arrests have followed daily.
Code officers also moved in and helped deputies board up a house at 3531 51st Ave. N because it was unfit for human habitation, Goodman said.
Two other houses - 35931/2 52nd Ave. N and 51401/2 37th St. N - also were closed and the electricity turned off.
"They did not meet the criteria to board them up," Goodman said.
