City workers boarded up a house on Juniper Street in Mobile on a Tuesday afternoon in June 2014, closing out a property that police say had racked up 58 arrests since the start of that year alone.
Mobile Police Chief James Barber said the home’s owner had been sent a warning letter the week before, notifying them that the residence at 1303 Juniper St. was in danger of being declared a drug-related nuisance under Alabama law, a designation that can ultimately cost an owner the property. Police said the house had been on their radar as a known gambling and drug den for years.
Two Raids Since January
Officers conducted two separate raids at the address since January, according to police. The most recent came on June 6, when officers arrested 24 people on charges including possession of a controlled substance and simple gambling. An earlier raid in January resulted in 34 arrests at the same address, bringing the year’s total to 58.
Capt. John Barber, who heads the Mobile Police Department’s Special Investigations Section, said the property had been known to police as a trouble spot for years before officers moved to shut it down for good.
Court Date Set, Homeowner Named
With a temporary restraining order in place, no one was permitted to enter or leave the boarded-up house. Police were scheduled to appear before a Mobile County circuit judge later that month to formally make their case against the home’s owner, identified in court records as the property owner of record.
Second Home Closed Under Nuisance Law
The Juniper Street closure marked the second time that year Mobile police used the state’s drug-related nuisance law to shut down a residence. Weeks earlier, in late May, city officials had boarded up a home on Partridge Street after officers served a third drug-related search warrant there in just two months. In that case, the homeowner agreed to bring the property up to code and prohibit further drug activity as a condition of reopening.
Following the Juniper Street closure, Chief Barber said police had not received any further complaints of drug activity at the property. He added that officers planned to meet with neighborhood leaders to discuss ways to prevent similar nuisance properties from taking root in the surrounding community, acknowledging that police alone could not solve the underlying problem. He described a broader effort to work with residents on long-term solutions rather than relying solely on repeated raids.