Oakland citizens concerned about prostitution and drug dealing in East Oakland spoke at a public hearing downtown at City Hall on December 1st over whether High Street Billiards, a family-owned establishment that has operated in the neighborhood for nearly 40 years, should lose its right to sell alcohol.

In the past two years, police arrested a man for selling narcotics in the bathroom of the billiard hall, and the bar was cited for selling alcohol to a minor. As a result, the City of Oakland is considering suspending the hall's ability to sell alcohol.

Preston Turner, a 20-year resident and member of the local Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council, said safety of High Street Billiards and the surrounding strip mall has been a priority of the group for a decade.

"The activities of drug sales, loitering and illegal vendor sales have been part of the problem there," Turner said, adding that on a recent visit to the billiard hall, he saw a woman that he believed to be a prostitute walk out of the club.

"She was greeted by the security guard, and they embraced, and then he escorted her to her pimp's car," Turner said. "I'm definitely in favor of the recommendation coming from the city attorney's office that we impose restrictions and also eliminate any sales of alcohol."

Turner's story was backed up by Richard Fuentes, a policy analyst for Vice Mayor Ignacio De La Fuente, who was with Turner at the time. Fuentes said he has received many complaints from the community about suspicious activities in the strip mall and the club since he joined De La Fuente's staff about a year ago.

But Javier Leon, owner of the club, said that most of his patrons are retired men who drink coffee and pass the time by playing pool, talking, and having an occasional beer. He said that patrons do occasionally go outside the club to smoke a cigarette. He pointed out that many of the community complaints reflected suspicious activities that took place in the parking lot of the strip mall, not in his billiard hall. However, he said his business has one of the only bathrooms in the vicinity, so people come inside to use the facilities.

"We have two bathrooms," Mr. Leon said. "The sign says they're only for customers. But they walk in and say they have to go. Because we're kind, we say, 'go ahead and use the bathroom.'"

Fuentes said he visited High Street Billiards several times to discuss safety concerns with Leon, but Leon was not at the hall when he visited.

"The reputation is not a good one for the billiard hall," Fuentes said. "Most of the NCPC members, and constituents as well, say they don't like to drive through there, they don't like to stop by. They call me and ask how we can make it better."

The City of Oakland previously filed suit against the landlord of the property in 2006, after police compiled 30 incidents of drug arrests in the billiards hall since the mid-1990s. Deputy City Attorney Carolyn Ortler Tsai brought a box of police reports to the hearing.

"There was heroin and cocaine being sold from the bathroom and the people sitting at the bar," Ortler Tsai said after the meeting.

As a result of the 2006 case, the landlord agreed to evict the tenant, effectively shutting down the billiards business, by August 2009. But the business is still open due to delays by the landlord, Ortler Tsai said.

"The deadline passed in August 2009," Ortler Tsai added. "We decided to go through with this hearing because we don't have any confidence that it's really going to be vacated."

Jed Somit, the attorney who moderated the hearing and will decide the fate of the liquor license, said that only incident reports from the previous two years would be considered. Somit said he would schedule an additional meeting within the next two weeks for the city and tenant to present further arguments. At the next hearing, the city will show a DVD of surveillance of the site.

____

For information on future hearings, contact Carolyn Ortler Tsai, deputy city attorney: cortler@oaklandcityattorney.org