The City of Rochester is facing a legal fight over its administrative search warrants. An attorney representing a tenant who refused to permit city inspectors into her home filed papers with the New York State Supreme Court on Friday, August 28.

The warrants are important tools to city officials trying to enforce the lead-based paint ordinance and looking for other safety concerns in rental properties, says Tom Richards, the city's corporation counsel.

"In order for a property owner to receive a Certificate of Occupancy for a rental property, the law requires that we have to inspect that property," Richards says.

David Ahl, a member of the New York State Coalition of Property Owners and Businesses, says that while he is not against warrants being issued when there is probable cause, he is against warrants that are an excuse for a hunting spree of possible violations of any law.

"You've got to tell me what you're looking for," Ahl says.

Ahl predicts that the administrative search warrants will go the way of the curfew, which was rejected by the courts.

Richards disagrees.

The question with the curfew, he says, was whether it was legal in the first place. There's no question about the legality of the lead-paint ordinance, Richards says, and the city has to be able to inspect properties in order to enforce that ordinance.

The city has a backlog of lead-paint inspections because of the legal challenge, Richards says.