Pubdate: Thu, 16 Mar 2006
Source: Tribune Review (Pittsburgh, PA)
Copyright: 2006 Tribune-Review Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/460
Author: Mike Seate

COLUMNIST HELPS FEDS SHUT DOWN HANGOUT

There's barely enough light to see your way around the empty room at
2537 Perrysville Ave. in the North Side, but a glance is enough. This
former convenience store has become the hangout of drug dealers and
street gangs, locals say, and evidence of nightly visits to the place
isn't hard to find.

Tiny plastic bags used to store small amounts of cocaine and crack
flutter in the breeze, while empty malt liquor bottles and potato chip
bags crunch underfoot. The drywall and ceiling tiles have been torn
away in many places, and dirty yellow fiberglass insulation has been
ripped apart by folks looking for drugs or money they hoped was left
behind by the building's owner, convicted cocaine kingpin Oliver
Beasley of Penn Hills.

Things aren't much better two doors down, in the former Beeda Bea's
House of Style and Beauty Salon. After the salon closed its doors
three years ago, the front door was kicked in and the room where local
ladies once sat for nail jobs and corn rows is now a shooting gallery
for junkies. It also makes a convenient hideout for anybody looking
for a warm, dark refuge from the streets.

"I'd board these places up myself, but I don't have the time or
money," said long-time neighborhood resident Galen Hatcher. As the
owner of an apartment building situated in between the two vacant
storefronts, Hatcher is especially nervous about the company the
properties are attracting.

Located at the intersection of Perrysville Avenue and North Charles
Street, the buildings are just a few blocks from the troubled
Northview Heights public housing project. It's not the best place to
live for people looking for drug-free sidewalks and safe family
strolls after dark.

But that should all end soon. The U.S. Attorney's Office last week
seized the buildings. Margaret Philbin, spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney
Mary Beth Buchanan, said the vacant stores will be boarded shut and
padlocked by federal marshals sometime this week.

Philbin and assistant U.S. Attorney Mary Houghton said information
from this columnist helped the feds secure the properties, a duty they
said I should be proud of. But curiously, I'm a little ambivalent
about the experience.

I've never been a fan of the federal government seizing private
citizens' properties, even those belonging to drug dealers. Beasley
might be serving a sentence of 20 years to life, but he eventually
might be paroled. When Beasley emerges from prison, he'll hit the
streets without the properties and businesses that could help him
start a new life.

With such a bleak outlook, I'm willing to bet a guy like Beasley could
end up back in jail in no time. To think I had a hand in that doesn't
make me sleep any easier at night.

On the other hand, the dangerous little section of the North Side
where Hatcher and his tenants live is about to become a lot safer.
Even the guys selling crack on their corner are unlikely to break into
a building owned by the feds.

Which, for lack of a better alternative, counts for something. 
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MAP posted-by: SHeath(DPF Florida)