COLUMBUS – A Hilltop House described as a “drug fortress” is the 14th property to be shut down this year because drug activity was taking place there.
This 'heavily fortified' west side property was the target of an ongoing @ColumbusPolice investigation into alleged heroin and fentanyl trafficking. It's now the 14th drug house we've shut down this year, half of which have been on the west side https://t.co/Sf33ZFoWsm pic.twitter.com/srSsC3Kqgd
— Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein (@CityAttyKlein) October 1, 2018
The home at 478 S. Harris Avenue was equipped with steel reinforced security doors, plexiglass windows equipped with chicken wire and security bars, a “large, vicious dog,” and several handguns and rifles, according to Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein.
“If the guy allegedly dealing drugs from the premises was concerned enough to heavily fortify the property, one can only imagine how much of a threat it must have been to the surrounding area,” said assistant City Attorney Zach Gwin.
The house is located within a half-mile of the Hilltop Branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library, Burroughs Elementary School and St. Mary Magdalene School, Klein said . It also is two blocks away from an apartment building the city shut down in August for being a public nuisance and just down the street from another drug house that was boarded up in March, he said.
Klein filed a request for a restraining order Monday in the Franklin County Environmental Court to shut down the home, which had been under covert police investigation since 2017, according to court documents.
Police began investigating the property early last year on suspicion of illegal narcotics being sold from the premises and made several undercover purchases of heroin from a 40-year-old man who was living in the home but who was initially identified only as “Dale.”
On at least one occasion, Klein says “Dale” told the undercover detectives that the heroin he was selling “had been mixed with fentanyl.”
When police raided the home they seized heroin, crack cocaine, mushrooms, suboxone, and over $2500 in cash.
After they notified the owner, Karen Adams, via certified letter of the drug activity, court records indicate Adams executed a quit claim deed transferring ownership of the property to her tenant, Dale Pine, Jr., and the drug activity continued. Detectives obtained several more covert purchases of heroin from Pine at the property, including last month.
If the house is declared to be a statutorily defined public nuisance by a court, the building can be ordered shut down for a year under state law.