The scene resembles the People's Court, complete with benches, an administrator barking case numbers and the "do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth" pledge.

But the 14th-floor proceedings in Baltimore's Board of Municipal and Zoning Appeals hearing room may better be described as the People's Trash Court.

In an effort to clean up the city and eliminate rats, city administrators created a new agency last year -- the Environmental Control Board -- to crack down on violators of sanitation laws.

Since starting six months ago, the control board's sanitation officers have issued $50 to $1,000 citations to residents breaking any of the city's 65 nuisance laws, ranging from placing trash on the curb a day early to animal cruelty.

The panel has fined about 6,000 city property owners nearly $260,000 since the first hearings in October. The panel meets on an as-needed basis, sometimes several times a week, with the mission of spreading the word: Baltimore is cleaning up its act.

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse," said Elias Dorsey, a city Health Department administrator and chairman of the three-member panel. "You better clean up and tell your neighbors."

The 13-member quasi-judicial board includes representatives from the city police, fire, health and housing departments, and will eventually add a City Council liaison, two city residents, a representative from small business and real estate, and citizens with backgrounds in noise and water pollution and solid waste. Three-member panels are chosen to hear cases until the city hires attorneys to act as hearing administrators.

Property owners who get caught violating the law by the city's 20 sanitation officers, who are armed with Polaroid cameras, complain that the city has become tyrannical in its enforcement. Most of the accused say the city should first issue warnings.

"I can understand if you're doing it over and over," said Reggie Martin, who listened to recent cases while accompanying a friend fined $50 for piling birthday party trash without containers in her yard.

"I've been listening to everybody and all I hear is guilty, guilty, guilty."

Dorsey suggested creating the control board last year while looking at how other cities reduced their rat problems. The city receives 50 to 100 complaints a day about rats, many drawn to feed on open trash and garbage.

City administrators have been frustrated by their inability to force residents to abide by city sanitation, pet and pollution ordinances, cases that get lost in a court burdened with drug and gun cases.

The panel is modeled after a similar board in New York. By creating a civil procedure to handle nuisance crimes, the City Council and Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke hope to relieve overburdened criminal courts, where such violations traditionally linger and never get resolved.

If property owners cited for violations fail to appear before the hearing panel and pay their fines, the board can triple the penalty. The city then places liens against the offender's home to ensure collection.

"By and large, the folks at the hearings accept it," Dorsey said. "The object isn't to make money, the object is to clean up the city."

Dorsey and Richard Krummerich, executive director of the board, said they are starting to see results from the crackdown, particularly in the removal of vacant cars from city streets.

Larry Elberson, owner of Larry's Hideaway bar at 300 S. Oldham St., has a new shed to show for his run-in with the trash police. Elberson was written up for having his trash on the sidewalk a day early and failing to have proper containers.

Elberson pleaded not guilty and purchased the storage shed to avoid further problems, he said. Despite the corrections, the board fined him $50.

Dorsey held up the Polaroid snapshot taken by the sanitation officers as the key piece of incriminating evidence.

"It's bull," Elberson said. "As long as they have their little picture, they don't want to hear anything."

The city sanitation officers, who work in the city's Department of Public Works, look like city police officers, sans weapons, in brown uniforms instead of blue. Like other law enforcement officers, they come to the hearings to testify in their cases.

In addition to the control board and its $300,000 annual budget, the crackdown has cost the city about $1.7 million, money they hope to recoup through fines. The New York board takes in $13 million annually in fines.

If the control board works well, the City Council is considering placing other violations such as loitering and illegal signs under its jurisdiction.

"The bottom line is people are coming in here saying, 'I got trash cans, I cleared the stuff out, I got rid of the car,' " Krummerich said.

Pub Date: 3/24/99