CLEVELAND — The City of Cleveland is trying to curb car meets at shopping centers by going after the wallets of property owners.
News 5 Investigators showed how dangerous drivers wreaked havoc on neighborhoods with burnouts, donuts, and loud music in parking lots.
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Now, council member Mike Polensek says police have new tools in writing to enforce the ordinance.
Cleveland City Council passed amendments to the nuisance property ordinance expanding the criteria list to all drug offenses, excessive smoke or noise from things like tricked out mufflers and stunt driving.
The amendments also apply to homes with absentee landlords.
“It has serious teeth but it also, it’s easier to enforce now. That officer doesn’t have to see that hell being raised,” Polensek said.
People are urged to call 911 to help police track the complaints.
Three or more complaints within 12 months can lead to a property being called a nuisance.
Property owners must then submit a plan to the safety director within ten days to make it stop.
“What’s going to catch the attention is that after the fourth complaint about your property and you don’t come up with a plan for a hundred-dollars-a-day fine, and if you don’t pay it, it’s going on your property taxes; cha ching,” Polensek said.
Not a single property in Cleveland was declared a nuisance in 2024.
In 2023, just one was cited, under the ordinance, according to the city.
News 5 Investigators asked Polensek if he thought police were outnumbered.
"There were so few cases cited in the city I’m not clear what they did,” Polensek said.
Last summer, News 5 Investigators showed how people begged police to stop the loud music and the gunfire at a car meet at a West Side shopping center.
"I just called 911 and they said to call when the shooting starts, well, the shooting started,” one caller said.
Polensek says it came to a head last year for two Glenville families.
“They moved, they moved off the street because an absentee landlord, an LLC, rented the property to the worst people you could imagine,” Polensek said.
We asked Polensek what Drummond told him when he asked why the ordinance wasn’t being enforced.
“To his benefit he said it wasn’t because they didn’t believe the law worked in the way it was structured,” Polensek said.
Car meets made headlines when a 17-year-old girl survived a shooting at Lee Harvard shopping center.
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"I really thought I was going to die that day,” the girl said in September 2024.
Lee Harvard Shopping Center made security improvements last year.
“I think it’s important for the private and public sector to work together to try to solve these community issues, but we’ve not been approached about the ordinance, and I also recognize each situation could be a little different,” VP of Operations First National Realty Partners Dwight Robertson said.
Cleveland’s Real Time Crime Center can tap into its on-site LVT camera. Barriers are moved around to discourage burnouts and donuts, and security guards monitor the lot.
Robertson says the city took up their officer for a storefront where police can stop in, creating more of a presence.
“I’m encouraged as the weather starts to warm. I'm hopeful we don’t see events like we did last year,” Robertson said.
The Cleveland Department of Public Safety says it proposed amendments so it could take effective action on repeat offenders.
