By markskalny @ Adobe Stock
You have read plenty about “no-go zones” here on Richardcyoung.com. They began in France, where police ceded control of entire neighborhoods to Muslim immigrants. But America has developed its own no-go zones, like Boston’s Mass-and-Cass. When cities are chopped up into protected and non-protected areas, the wealthy are saved, and the rest are left to rot with the criminals who run the areas without police. Radical progressive politicians have allowed these no-go zones to pop up in cities across America, with drug addicts and migrants taking over city streets, causing mayhem and spreading filth. After a court battle, Phoenix was forced to clean up one such area known locally as “The Zone.” Now, business owners have won a second lawsuit against the city that will force it to keep the area clean and free of homeless encampments that endanger the residents. Maggie Hroncich reports in The New York Sun:
Phoenix business owners and residents who were exposed to ground “soaked with urine and human feces,” “frequent public nudity,” and “tin foil with burned residue of fentanyl pills all over the sidewalks,” have secured a second legal win in a years-long battle over a sprawling homeless encampment known as “the Zone.”
The Arizona Court of Appeals agreed Tuesday with a lower superior court’s order in September that forced the city of Phoenix to clean up the encampment and enforce its own public nuisance laws.
“For more than 85 years, Arizona’s courts have recognized the authority to hold municipalities responsible for public nuisances on land they own and control under Arizona law,” the appeals court ruling notes.
The decision comes as homelessness has become a major issue in Arizona, with the state’s data indicating that the homeless population increased by 29 percent from January 2020 to January 2023. “Homelessness-related service providers are a growing industry,” according to the Common Sense Institute, which estimates that public entities and nonprofits spend an estimated $1 billion annually directly on homelessness — or nearly $50,000 per homeless person each year.
In November, Arizona voters will decide on a ballot measure that aims to give property tax refunds to property owners who are affected by the government’s failure to enforce laws “prohibiting illegal camping, loitering, obstructing public thoroughfares, panhandling, public urination or defecation, public consumption of alcoholic beverages, and possession or use of illegal substances.”
Arizona’s ruling also comes only two months after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson, in which the majority held that a city enforcing its public camping ordinances can’t be considered “cruel and unusual” punishment — although the state ruling didn’t address the Grants Pass verdict.
In the Phoenix case, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge, Scott Blaney, agreed in September with the property owners who were suing the city, holding that city officials both created and maintained “the dire situation that currently exists in the Zone through its failure, and in some cases refusal, to enforce criminal and quality of life laws in the Zone.”
That ruling found that the Zone had become a “biohazard,” as “human waste, food waste, and trash,” were dumped on the streets, “homeless individuals defecate and urinate in the open,” and property owners “are forced to clean up the human waste each day.” In addition to fire hazards, prostitution, public nudity, and public “sex acts” in the Zone, the court noted that there were “used needles,” and said “fentanyl-tainted pieces of tin foil blow around in the wind and come into contact with residents, business owners, their employees, and even their children.”
Read more here.
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