Pac Bell Is Ready to Help Stop Dial-a-Drug Trade
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The drug war isn’t one big battle, of course, but rather a series of skirmishes, most of them fought in the streets.
One idea being talked about at San Diego City Hall is to ask Pacific Bell to rig public telephones in high-drug areas not to receive incoming calls. The goal is to keep drug dealers from setting up shop at pay phones.
It is not uncommon for dealers in parts of Southeast San Diego to claim pay phones as their own. That allows their customers to know where and when to call to check on price and availability.
On a busy night, dealers work the street-corner phones as assiduously as stockbrokers in a bull market.
In the drug trade a public phone is preferable
to a private one: less chance of a record of voluminous calls being tagged to a single person. After all, who can prove who answered a public phone at 3 a.m.?
The no-incoming idea is not new in the anti-drug fight. New York and other cities have done it. The city of Sacramento may go a step further by removing certain pay phones altogether as public nuisances.
Pacific Bell, which owns 90% of the pay phones in San Diego County, says it’s willing to help, although it wants to make sure the law-abiding are not punished. Some poor neighborhoods are particularly dependent on their pay phones for incoming calls of all varieties.
“We’re ready to cooperate,” said a company spokesman.
San Diego Police Cmdr. Cal Krosch says merchants have complained about dealers using phones day and night near their stores. Turning off the incoming calls would help, he said.
“Anything is worth a try, because right now we’re losing the fight,” Krosch said. “If it could keep the dealers off-balance even a little, it would help.”
Chain Reaction Protested
Stephen Carroll, attorney for accused madam Karen Wilkening, says he wants his client treated better at the Las Colinas Jail for women in Santee.
“The solitary confinement is tiring,” Carroll said. “She is chained whenever she leaves her cell, even when going to take a shower--this in a simple prostitution case.”
Carroll said he plans to use a “diplomatic approach” in asking that jailers lighten up on Wilkening, who is being held in lieu of $4-million bail. Failing that, he may go to court.
Sheriff’s Sgt. Thomas Bennett says Wilkening is kept in a separate cell and is chained when moving outside the cell because she is considered an escape risk. The chains are removed during showers, he said.
Separated from other prisoners, the former fugitive is said to be writing a book about her exploits.
Same Name, No Notoriety
Karen Campbell of Tierrasanta is not surprised that there are three women named Karen Wilkening in San Diego County. She’s found at least a dozen other women named Karen Campbell.
They may even start a Karen Campbell Club. They already receive each other’s mail, phone calls and visitors. Mistaken identity is common.
“We’re just glad none of us has gotten notorious,” said Karen Campbell of Tierrasanta.
Four of the Karen Campbells go to the same ob-gyn. There’s no record, however, of one of them having another’s baby.
Trek to Court Continues
Update: Craig Pendergast, the San Diego free-lance writer who is suing over “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock,” is equally unhappy over the just-released “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.”
Pendergast claims Paramount Pictures ripped off parts of his screenplay “Ghost Ship” for Trek III. Now he also finds bits of his work in Trek V.
“They’ve done it again,” he says.
In his screenplay, Starship Enterprise goes to the Gates of Paradise searching for Spock. In Trek V, Starship Enterprise goes to a faraway planet with a colony called Paradise searching for Spock.
Pendergast may amend his damage suit to include this and other similarities. But don’t expect much to happen right away.
His suit has been swallowed by a void even greater and more unfathomable than space: the federal court system.
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