Little Victories

Change came swiftly to a gritty corner of the Tenderloin over the holidays, but residents learned that victories in their emergent campaign to clean up the beleaguered neighborhood may come with a price.

The owner of the Doba Cafe and Deli, a market at Eddy and Leavenworth streets that neighbors claimed was a haven for drug dealers, was ordered to pay more than $10,000 in damages after losing a nuisance lawsuit brought by neighborhood residents. But Tawfiq Elmuflihi promptly closed the store, leaving another empty business on the street.

The damages, awarded by a Small Claims Court judge, were but a fraction of the more than $200,000 sought by 42 plaintiffs, who claimed Elmuflihi and Nghia Trinh, his landlord, contributed to rampant narcotics activity in and around the business. Residents lost two other small claims suits, in which more than 30 plaintiffs sought up to $5,000 each from a parking lot and an auto shop at Turk and Hyde streets on similar grounds.

The victory in the Doba Cafe suit was met with mixed emotions after Elmuflihi paid the damages, and then shut down his business.

"The nuisance is successfully abated, but it left us with a vacant storefront, which is not what we want," said Ana B. Arguello, project director for the Tenderloin-based group Adopt-a-Block, which organized area residents to file the suits. "But if it gives us the option to include a better business, then so be it, it's that much better."

Though Elmuflihi could not be reached for comment, his attorney, Mark Mittelman, said Elmuflihi left out of frustration with crime in the area, and felt unjustly targeted by the "misguided but well-intentioned" suits.

"This is a perfect example of a legitimate business being forced out of a neighborhood that needs businesses," Mittelman said. "The problem in that store, as well as any other store [in the Tenderloin], is that the shop owner cannot be on top of every customer. At this point it's an unsolvable problem. I'm assuming enough was enough."

The suits, filed last fall, represent a novel and controversial approach to combating Tenderloin drug sales, in that they attempt to hold business and property owners financially responsible for narcotics activity in and around their premises. SF Weekly first reported on the neighborhood's efforts in a July 21 cover story, "Tender Box."

Residents sued the Doba Cafe's owner and landlord under state laws which say that any property used to sell or store drugs, or which is deemed objectionable to the senses, is a nuisance, and those affected may sue to recover damages.

The City Attorney's Office also filed a similar suit against the Doba Cafe last summer, asking for $25,000 in damages, and seeking to close the cafe for one year. An informal settlement hearing in that suit is scheduled for later this month, although now that the cafe is closed it is unclear how the case will proceed.

The southeast corner of Eddy and Leavenworth is by no means the only staging point for drug sales in the Tenderloin. However, residents and police say the Doba Cafe offered a particularly egregious example of a business that encouraged such activity. According to police reports included with the City Attorney's lawsuit, officers have, since April 1998, confiscated an illegal video poker machine at the Doba Cafe, 32 suspected crack pipes, copper scouring pads cut into small pieces (often used as filters), and bags of small balloons (often used to package narcotics).

Police also arrested a man in the process of breaking up crack on the cafe's counter, arrested another man for selling crack in the cafe's doorway, and witnessed additional suspected drug sales in the store while reviewing a security video following a robbery last April. Also, area residents claim to have seen store clerks selling narcotics, and say harassment by groups of drug dealers in front of the cafe made life on the 400 block of Eddy all but unbearable.

"It pissed me off, but I couldn't show my rage, I couldn't get angry," said plaintiff Rebecca Harris, who lives at and manages the Central Towers apartment complex at 455 Eddy. On one occasion, Harris said, a drug dealer spat on her infant granddaughter. Still, Harris says she was saddened by Elmuflihi's departure following what was by all accounts a bitter legal dispute.

"I'm not happy that [the Doba Cafe] went out of business," Harris said. "I feel sorry for them that they think they had to go out of business rather than to come to [community] meetings, sit down and talk to us and give us their ideas on how we can help them improve."

In a decision issued in November, a judge found "ample credible evidence for the court to conclude that defendant Elmuflihi sold or permitted drugs to be sold on his premises." Trinh was also held responsible in that "he knew of the drug activity occurring at the Doba and did not take all reasonable measures available to him to control his property."

Most of the 42 plaintiffs requested the maximum allowable in small claims court -- $5,000. However, only seven -- those living on the south side of the 400 block of Eddy -- were awarded damages, receiving $1,500 each, plus court costs. The Central Towers apartment complex at 455 Eddy was also awarded the token $1 it requested. The cafe's owner and landlord had until late December to appeal the judgment in Superior Court, but chose not to.