Looking for the key to the prison block

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By ELIJAH GOSIER

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 20, 2001

Thirty-fourth Street is as busy through St. Petersburg as I-275 is above it. That volume makes it a ribbon of opportunity. From sweaty industrial areas in the north to bayside parks in the south, 34th Street pushes travelers past myriad storefronts tapping into the street's potential.

But unseen at 45 mph, other stories unfold along the artery.

The 400 block of the street's northern stretch is one of them.

It is not polite society.

It is a world inhabited mostly by people whose bad luck or bad choices have redefined their American dream. Some pay the cost of living one day at a time until they can get on their feet again. Too often, though, paying for today doesn't leave much from a near-minimum wage paycheck to save for tomorrow -- especially for those with children.

Others have no intention of leaving. For them, prosperity means having enough money left Sunday morning to buy a 12-pack of cheap beer as soon as stores are allowed to sell it. Investing in the future means buying a lottery ticket, or, for the less ambitious, buying a friend a beer in the hope that he'll return the favor one day.

This is a world that thrives on darkness and obscurity, but it is about to be hit with a floodlight from the quarter that makes it most nervous: the law.

The 400 block is primarily a collection of sleazy motels, with people doing what they often do in and around sleazy motels. Some buy and sell drugs, some buy and sell sex. Some get drunk and fight, some get drunk and go to jail. For many, this describes their routine.

There is also a bar patronized largely by the people who patronize the motels. They feel at home there.

Many patrons of the motels and bar are day laborers. They make enough money to pay their rent for the day, buy a few beers and, if anything's left, a little something to eat.

A lot of alcohol is consumed here. But don't call anyone here an alcoholic. You'll likely get the swift, offended reply: "I'm not an alcoholic; I'm a drunk. Alcoholics have to go to them meetings."

To supplement their incomes, many sell drugs; to supplement their beer, many use them.

Shoplifters hawk everything from steak to stereos, often boasting that the merchandise is in unopened boxes or still wearing its price tag. They swiftly convert their bargains into beer or dope.

The 400 block is a symbiotic world where parasites and hosts feed each other. It's one of the pit stops where crack-addicted prostitutes take a break from their spastic strolls up and down 34th Street N. Drug dealers hang around because that's where their customers are.

Johns are drawn there because that's where the prostitutes and drugs -- sometimes the illegal tender between the two -- are. Outsiders, who regularly peel off 34th Street to do business with the dealers in drugs and sex, feed the system with fresh cash.

In this culture, police officers are the enemy, even to the people who do not participate in the criminal cycle. Police represent the judgmental world outside their circle and are a threat to it. Conservatively dressed outsiders are viewed with suspicion and quickly tagged by whispers around the bar and on the street as "narcs."

The 400 block is about to be forced to look at itself and, more significantly, show its face to the public. It has been "narc-ed."

A lawsuit filed last week asserts that in this symbiotic world of illicit drugs and sex, the biggest parasites, the biggest feeders -- the ones most in need of squashing -- are the owners and operators of the motels and lounge.

"People who understand drug addicts know that they're luring them there because they believe they can go there (and use drugs) with impunity," said Darryl Rouson, the lawyer who filed the suit. "This game (the owners play) of "We can't control what happens in the rooms' is not good enough."

The suit names the owners of New Plaza Motel, Economy Inn and Villager Lodge as defendants, and charges that they knowingly allow and profit from use of their establishments for prostitution and drug activity.

The plaintiffs in the suit are Kelly McGlorthon, who was arrested on drug charges while registered at the New Plaza Motel, the owners of an apartment building across the street from New Plaza, and Rouson, as a resident of Pinellas County.

The suit seeks an injunction to shut down the businesses if they don't take steps to cure what it calls a public nuisance and a threat to the health and safety of the community. It also seeks $5-million in damages to McGlorthon for harm done by his drug use and the loss of freedom and rights associated with his arrest and conviction

Rouson, a recovering crack addict who says he "used to get high at New Plaza 15 years ago," has waged a successful one-man crusade against businesses that cater to drug use. He has caused stores to remove products from their shelves and pushed the owners of crack houses to relinquish their property.

At first blush, it's easy to dismiss the suit, especially with inclusion of McGlorthon, who had his share of arrests and drug problems long before he registered at New Plaza. Several of the defendant properties have undergone scrutiny by the city's nuisance abatement board, and one of them, New Plaza, has been recognized for its efforts to clean up illicit activity.

"Why me?" asks New Plaza owner Jose Caixeiro, when asked about the suit. He says that the city has applauded his efforts to fight illegal activity on his property and that some of his employees have even been injured trying to evict unwelcome guests.

But, there are questions that beg for an answer from the courthouse.

The central one: Should the 400 block be allowed to exist? There is an area like it in every city, several in some.

Are the businesses there doing the community a service by providing a repository for people polite society considers undesirable? Or are they doing it harm by enabling undesirable behavior?

The quick answer probably depends on how close to it you live. If you're safely tucked away in Snell Isle or Lakewood, it probably seems like a good idea to cram all the druggies and prostitutes in a central location several miles from your front steps -- and put a fence around it while you're at it.

If you live across the street, it's a disgrace and a nuisance.

A legal answer, always unpredictable, is forthcoming.

The humanitarian answer, though, is easy.

Businesses in the 400 block of 34th Street N have a captive clientele largely made up of people whose lives are derailed, often through their own doing. They are prisoners of survival and addiction. In this stretch of opportunity, the owners of the motels here can be their wardens or their probation officers. They can hold them there and feed off their shortcomings, or they can force them to take responsibility for their lives or take their lives elsewhere.

Holding them there for the profit that can be sponged out of them is immoral. Catering to their baser sides is trading in misery.

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