BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 2310
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Date of Hearing: April 9, 2014
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Mike Gatto, Chair
AB 2310 (Ridley-Thomas and Dickinson) - As Amended: March 28,
2014
Policy Committee:
JudiciaryVote:10-0
Urgency: Yes State Mandated Local Program:
Yes Reimbursable: Yes
SUMMARY
This bill re-establishes a pilot program, which inadvertently
sunset last year, allowing specific jurisdictions to bring
eviction proceedings against tenants for committing nuisance
violations involving unlawful weapons. Specifically, this bill:
1)Authorizes the city attorney in the Cities of Long Beach, Los
Angeles, and Sacramento, until January 1, 2019, to file an
unlawful detainer action for illegal sale or possession of
firearms or ammunition on residential premises.
2)Revises the information required to be reported annually by
the participating cities to the California Research Bureau
(CRB), and requires the CRB to submit reports to the
Legislature in March 2016 and March 2018 summarizing the data
and evaluating the pilot program's merits.
FISCAL EFFECT
Minor absorbable costs to the cities and to the CRB for the
reporting requirements.
COMMENTS
1)Purpose . The pilot program authorizes city attorneys in the
three cities, rather than the landlord or property owner, to
initiate eviction proceedings against tenants for committing
nuisance violations involving unlawful weapons and ammunition.
This special statutory authority is unusual because
traditionally only the landlord has authority to file an
AB 2310
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unlawful detainer against a tenant for recovery of possession
of the property. Under the pilot program, the prosecutor must
first give 30 calendar days of written notice documenting the
alleged nuisance or illegal activity to the landlord and the
offending tenant, thus providing the landlord the first
opportunity to file an unlawful detainer action against the
offending tenant.
Authority for this program was extended by AB 530
(Krekorian)/Statutes of 2009, but that authority sunset on
December 31, 2013. According to proponents, that was an
unfortunate oversight, and this urgency bill is needed to
resume the program as soon as possible to ensure public safety
as well as uninterrupted study and evaluation of the program.
2)Program Data . According to the most recent CRB report to the
Legislature which analyzed only 2011 data, the Los Angeles
City Attorney's office used this authority on 19 occasions to
send notices of intent to evict to landlords and nuisance
tenants. By contrast, the Long Beach City Attorney sent 13
notices and the Sacramento City Attorney sent only nine such
notices. The percentage of cases where the property owner
responded by filing an unlawful detainer directly did not
differ significantly between the three participating cities,
ranging from 39% to 44%.
To allow for better study and evaluation of the program, the
bill revises data to be reported, based on recommendations of
the CRB. These revisions are intended to facilitate
information reported at the individual case level rather than
at an aggregate level, and to make reporting less burdensome
by requiring data to be uniformly reported in a template
designed by CRB.
3)Related Legislation . AB 2485 (Dickinson), also on today's
committee agenda, re-establishes the City of Sacramento's
authority to participate in a related pilot program allowing
city-initiated eviction proceedings related to the sale or
possession of controlled substances.
Analysis Prepared by : Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081
AB 2310
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