Short answer. Under Section 52, any resident, employee or officer of the city or municipality may bring a complaint about a property used for drug dealing before an administrative board the locality sets up by ordinance. You must give the owner at least three days' written notice of the complaint before the board hears it.
What the law says
any employee, officer, or resident of the city or municipality may bring a complaint before the Board after giving not less than three (3) days written notice of such complaint to the owner of the place or premises at his/her last known address
RA 9165, Section 52 — Abating Drug-Related Nuisances. Read the full provision →
Who can complain, and to whom
The section provides that any employee, officer, or resident of the city or municipality may bring a complaint before the Board. That board is an administrative body the city or municipality is empowered to create by ordinance to hear complaints about drug-related nuisances. So the first step is not a court filing at all — it is confirming that your locality has enacted the ordinance and constituted the board. The right to complain is given broadly to any resident, employee or officer of the locality, not restricted to the immediate neighbours of the property in question.
The notice requirement
Before the board hears the matter, the complainant must give not less than three (3) days written notice of such complaint to the owner of the place or premises at his/her last known address. This is a condition of the process, not a formality to be skipped. It exists so the owner has the opportunity the section guarantees — to appear and answer. A complaint that bypasses the notice undercuts itself, because the owner's right to be heard is built into the procedure. Keeping proof that the notice was given, and to what address, is therefore worth doing.
What the board considers
At the hearing the board may consider any evidence, including evidence of the general reputation of the place, and the owner may present a defence. The underlying threshold is that the premises were used on two or more occasions as the site of unlawful sale or delivery of dangerous drugs. So a useful complaint points to a pattern rather than a lone suspicion — dates, repeated activity, anything showing the property has been the venue more than once. The board weighs that material and the owner's response before deciding whether to declare the place a public nuisance.
What this route is and is not
This administrative nuisance process is aimed at the property. It is separate from reporting the dealing to law enforcement so the people responsible can be prosecuted, and the two can run in parallel. If your city or municipality has not enacted the enabling ordinance, the abatement board may not exist locally, and reporting the activity for criminal action is then the practical channel. Where the board does exist, the local government can tell you how complaints are filed and heard. For anything beyond filing the complaint, advice from counsel helps you frame it to the board's standard.