New Harbor Inn owners file civil-rights lawsuit against Costa Mesa
The owners of New Harbor Inn in Costa Mesa have filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the city has discriminated against them and their tenants and that recent efforts to close the motel violate their constitutional and civil rights.
Ming Cheng Chen and Hsiang Chu Shih Chen, the motel’s owners and operators since 1984, filed the complaint against the city last week in U.S. District Court.
They are represented by Los Angeles-based attorney Frank Weiser, who said Friday that “whatever the city of Costa Mesa wants to do, they’ve got to do it in a constitutional manner. That’s the bottom line, and they’re not doing that now.”
The action came less than five months after the city filed a public-nuisance complaint in Orange County Superior Court aimed at forcing either the closure or cleanup of the 32-room motel at 2205 Harbor Blvd.
The lawsuit against the city claims that Costa Mesa in recent years has undertaken a “systematic policy, custom and practice” aimed at forcing New Harbor Inn out of business “to drive down the value of the property for eventual transfer to private developers.”
The lawsuit alleges such actions also are aimed at driving out “the low-income tenants who reside at the motel on a long-term permanent residency basis who are mostly poor and cannot afford to live and pay rent at apartment buildings.”
The suit also alleges that Costa Mesa police officers have entered private areas of the motel without notice, consent, a warrant or a court order.
City spokesman Tony Dodero said Friday that the city is aware of the lawsuit, but he declined to comment beyond the city’s original statement announcing legal action against New Harbor Inn.
The April 25 statement referred to the motel as “blighted and crime-infested.”
“By taking this action against this public nuisance, the City Council is trying to eliminate the unlawful use of the property,” the statement said.
At the time, city officials said the motel had generated nearly 1,800 police calls since 2010 and was a “known locale for drug storage and sales.”
In its complaint, the city asked the court to authorize either temporarily or permanently shuttering the motel or to appoint a receiver to take over its management.
Mayor Steve Mensinger said City Hall’s “drastic intervention,” approved unanimously during a closed council meeting, was “necessary given the pattern and practice of bad business operations.”
New Harbor Inn is among local motels that city officials have long derided as hotbeds for crime, prostitution and drug use. In recent years, law and code enforcement raids have examined rooms in Alibaba Motel, Costa Mesa Motor Inn and Sandpiper Motel and issued various fines.
The council also has eyed ways to encourage motel owners to redevelop their properties.
The city already has approved plans to replace the Motor Inn at 2277 Harbor Blvd. with 224 high-end apartments. That project has been the subject of criticism and a target of legal challenges from affordable-housing advocates.
This week the City Council voted in closed session to appeal a preliminary injunction issued in June that effectively prevents the motel’s owner, Miracle Mile Properties, from moving ahead with building the new apartments.
Miracle Mile has continued efforts to relocate or vacate tenants ahead of demolishing the motel and has begun the process of evicting those who still live there.
As of this week, only 13 of the motel’s 236 rooms remained occupied, according to Ellia Thompson, a lawyer who represents Miracle Mile.
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