§ 125.063.Public Nuisance; Use of Place

The place-based half of the subchapter, in one sentence.

The habitual use of a place by a combination, criminal street gang, or foreign terrorist organization for engaging in gang activity is a public nuisance.

The nuisance is the use, not the place. The section does not condemn a building; it identifies a pattern of use that equity can be asked to stop.

"Habitual" is the threshold, and it is not the defined term the companion provision uses. That provision turns on associating continuously or regularly, which the definition section fixes at five times in twelve months. This one says habitual, which the subchapter does not define.

The evidence provision supplies the practical test. Proof that gang activity is frequently committed at a place, or that the place is frequently used for it, is prima facie evidence that the proprietor knowingly permitted it.

Notice who that presumption runs against: the proprietor. A place-based public nuisance reaches the person responsible for the premises, and the suit provision makes that explicit by allowing anyone who owns or is responsible for maintaining the place to be made a defendant.

The remedy for a place is narrower than for a gang. A court finding a place habitually used in this manner may include reasonable requirements to prevent the use of the place for gang activity — requirements about the property, not an injunction against people.

There is no one-year closure here. That remedy belongs to the common nuisance subchapter, and this subchapter does not carry it.