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By Mike Barnhardt

Enterprise Record

A Mocksville woman was charged by the Davie Sheriff’s Office last week for “keeping a disorderly house.”

You read that right.

Holly Marie Robertson, 43, of 7305 NC 801 South,  faces that charge after what Davie Sheriff J.D. Hartman said has been an ongoing nuisance location for years.

The charge – rarely used – is based on a North Carolina law that Hartman said once was used mostly against houses of prostitution. He added that the wording of the law fits this case, which he called a drug house frequented by known criminals.

“We will use every tool we’ve got to stop these places,” he said.

The department several times have declared a house a nuisance, and gone through extensive paper work and the court system. This is just another method to try to clean things up.

This charge fits, Hartman said, because of the wording of the law:

“… for keeping a disorderly house or bawdy house, or permitting a house to be used as a bawdy house, or used in such a way as to make it disorderly, or a common nuisance, evidence of the general reputation or character of the house shall be admissable … and evidence of the lewd, dissolute and boisterous conversation of the inmates and frequenters … should be prima facie evidence of the bad charater of the inmates and frequenters, and of the disorderly character of the house.”

The law goes on to define the “keeper” of the house. The charge is a Class 2 misdemeanor. Hartman said he didn’t know if Robertson was the owner of the house.

Deputies have responded to the house at least three dozen times this year alone, Hartman said, providing documents showing illegal activity and wanted persons at the house since 2007, with activity increasing in 2020. Calls were for reported drug use, to serve warrants, illegal burning, trespassing and others. Multiple arrests have been made at the house, he said.