BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 2310
Page 1
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB 2310 (Ridley-Thomas and Dickinson)
As Amended March 28, 2014
2/3 vote. Urgency
JUDICIARY 10-0 APPROPRIATIONS 16-0
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|Ayes:|Wieckowski, Wagner, |Ayes:|Gatto, Bigelow, Allen, |
| |Alejo, Chau, Dickinson, | |Bocanegra, Bradford, Ian |
| |Garcia, Gorell, | |Calderon, Campos, Eggman, |
| |Maienschein, Muratsuchi, | |Gomez, Holden, Linder, |
| |Stone | |Pan, Quirk, |
| | | |Ridley-Thomas, Wagner, |
| | | |Weber |
|-----+--------------------------+-----+--------------------------|
| | | | |
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SUMMARY : Re-establishes a pilot program, which sunset last
year, that conditionally allows city attorneys and prosecutors
in participating cities to bring eviction proceedings against
tenants for committing nuisance violations involving unlawful
weapons and ammunition. Specifically, this bill :
1)Re-establishes the Civil Code Section 3485 (Section 3485)
pilot program for weapons-related evictions that, until
sunsetting on December 31, 2013, provided pilot authority to
the city attorney or prosecutor in participating jurisdictions
to file an unlawful detainer action in the name of the people
against a tenant for the illegal possession or sale of
firearms or ammunition, as specified, on the residential
premises, or for using the premises to further that illegal
purpose.
2)Authorizes only the cities of Los Angeles, Long Beach, and
Sacramento to participate in the pilot program.
3)Establishes a January 1, 2019, sunset date for the pilot
program.
4)Revises specified information and data required to be reported
annually to the California Research Bureau (CRB), and requires
the CRB to submit a brief report evaluating the merits of the
pilot program to the Senate and Assembly Judiciary Committees
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by specified dates in 2016 and 2018.
5)Declares that this is an urgency statute to protect public
safety and makes findings that a special law is necessary to
limit application of the law to the jurisdictions identified
in this act.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Provides that a tenant who maintains, commits or permits a
nuisance upon the premises or who uses the premises for an
unlawful purpose thereby terminates the lease, entitling the
landlord to restitution of the premises under unlawful
detainer.
2)Specifies that a person who illegally possesses certain
firearms or ammunition on the premises, or who illegally
possesses or sells a controlled substance on the premises, or
who uses the premises to further either purpose, as defined,
shall be deemed to have committed a nuisance upon the premises
for the purpose of determining unlawful detainer against that
person.
3)Authorizes the city attorney or prosecutor in Los Angeles to
file, in the name of the people, an action for unlawful
detainer against a tenant for committing nuisance violations
involving the illegal possession or sale of a controlled
substance on the premises or using the premises to further
that purpose.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee, minor absorbable costs to the cities and to the CRB
for the reporting requirements.
COMMENTS : This bill, sponsored by the Los Angeles City
Attorney's office, seeks to re-establish the Section 3485 pilot
program that, until it sunset last year, authorized city
attorneys in participating jurisdictions to bring eviction
proceedings against tenants for committing nuisance violations
involving unlawful weapons and ammunition. Authority for the
pilot program was extended an additional four years by AB 530
(Krekorian), Chapter 244, Statutes of 2009, but that authority
sunset on December 31, 2013, pursuant to AB 530 when no statute
was subsequently enacted to continue the program. According to
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proponents, that was an unfortunate legislative oversight, and
this urgency bill is needed to restore the Section 3485 program
to ensure public safety, as well as uninterrupted study and
evaluation of the program.
According to the author, the pilot authority provided to city
attorneys and prosecutors under the Section 3485 program is an
important tool that can be used to reduce gun violence and
protect public safety. The author states, "At times, the
property owner is afraid to evict the tenant because of threats,
gang affiliation or other intimidating conduct. Section 3485
authorized city attorneys to bring an unlawful detainer in such
a circumstance. Allowing the city attorney to bring the action
shields fearful or vulnerable owners from retaliatory threats or
violent reprisals by armed tenants. Eviction of the tenant
committing a weapon or ammunition related violation also
increases public safety and the sense of community among
law-abiding tenants."
The Section 3485 pilot program authorizes city attorneys and
prosecutors in participating jurisdictions, 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 unlawful detainer against a tenant for
recovery of possession of the property.
Under the pilot programs, a city attorney or city prosecutor may
file an unlawful detainer action against any person for creating
a nuisance on the property by using or allowing the premises to
be used for the illegal possession or sale of specified weapons
or ammunition. The city's action would be predicated on its
belief that a specified weapons-related offense has occurred on
the subject real property based upon an arrest report or other
law enforcement report.
In any unlawful detainer action brought by the city prosecutor
or city attorney under the pilot programs, the public prosecutor
must first give 30 calendar days of written notice documenting
the alleged nuisance or illegal activity to the landlord and the
offending tenant. This notice is designed to give the landlord
the first opportunity to file an unlawful detainer action
against the offending tenant. The landlord may then either file
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the action or assign the right to bring the unlawful detainer
action to the public prosecutor. If the landlord fails to file
an unlawful detainer action, or fails to prosecute such an
action diligently and in good faith, the city attorney or city
prosecutor may file the action and may join both the landlord
and the offending tenant as co-defendants.
Participation in the program also requires the city attorney to
report specified information to the CRB about city attorney
involvement, property owner response, court processing, and
tenant reaction. The law requires CRB, in turn, to evaluate and
report the merits of the program to the Legislature. The most
recent CRB report, containing more detailed analysis of both the
weapons and drug-related eviction pilot programs, is available
at: http://www.library.ca.gov/crb/13/13-001.pdf .
Participating Jurisdictions: Under this bill, only the cities
of Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Sacramento are authorized to
participate in the pilot program.
Reporting Requirements: To allow for better study and
evaluation of the program, the author has adopted several
recommendations from the CRB to revise the data items currently
required to be reported. According to the CRB, these revisions
are intended to facilitate information reported at the
individual case level (i.e., for each instance a notice is
provided to the tenant) rather than at an aggregate level, and
to also make reporting less burdensome by requiring data to be
uniformly reported in a template designed by CRB.
Sunset Date: The bill contains a sunset date of January 1,
2019, for all participating jurisdictions, which allows the CRB
four more years to collect data and examine still unresolved
research questions about the program's effectiveness and
implementation.
Analysis Prepared by : Anthony Lew / JUD. / (916) 319-2334
FN: 0003166
AB 2310
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