Case of Spa Maker Charged With Fouling School Air Ends in Mistrial

The eight-week trial of a Van Nuys hot-tub manufacturing company and its chief executive ended in a mistrial Friday morning, after a Los Angeles Municipal Court jury was unable to decide if they were responsible for chemical fumes that prompted dozens of complaints from teachers and pupils at Sylvan Park Elementary School.

The jury voted to acquit Custom Home Spas Inc., formerly of 15001 Calvert St., of one of the eight misdemeanor counts filed against it. But the jury, which had deliberated five days, was split 6-6 on most of the other seven counts against the firm, and on all nine misdemeanor charges against company President Al Weaver.

The company and Weaver were accused of violating nuisance-odor provisions of the state Health and Safety Code and a regulation of the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

Later Friday, Judge Barbara A. Meier granted a motion for a retrial over objections from defense lawyer Warren McCament--who said another trial would not be prosecution but “persecution.”

However, the judge agreed to a joint request by McCament and Deputy City Atty. Keith Pritsker to wait until Dec. 3 to set a date for a new trial. In the meantime, Pritsker said, the parties would attempt to reach “some kind of compromise” settlement to avert another trial.

Testimony on Fumes

During the trial, which began Sept. 19, Pritsker called nearly 40 witnesses, including air-district inspectors and 14 teachers and staff members from Sylvan Park Elementary School. They testified that, on a number of occasions between September, 1983, and May, 1984, annoying and sometimes nauseating styrene fumes drifted into the schoolyard.

The plant, about 350 feet from the school, was shut after the air district revoked its operating permits in June, 1984. The company since has been reorganized and has reopened in North Hollywood.

Outside the courtroom, some jurors said they believed that the offensive odors could have come from other plants in the industrial area ringing the school.

Jury foreman Veronica Gallardo of East Los Angeles said she opposed conviction because she did not believe a single plant “was the culprit in the whole thing. . . . We felt that it was the industrial area in itself.” Agnes Lenover, a juror from Lincoln Heights, said she also sought acquittal because “in my mind, it wasn’t right that they should blame one particular source.”

Sondra De Vaughn of Inglewood, a juror who favored conviction on most of the counts, said she was convinced that there “was styrene in the air” and that it came from the spa company “because they used so much of that chemical.”

McCament said he was disappointed that his clients were not acquitted on all counts. But he said the lack of a conviction on any count was “a substantial vindication” of his clients.

‘As Plain as Dirt’

“Obviously, I am disappointed,” Pritsker said after the jury went home. “To me, this case was as plain as dirt.”

Susan FitzGerald, a prosecution witness who worked at Sylvan Park at the time of the odor complaints, said she was rather surprised at the outcome. “I really felt that the company was definitely at fault,” she said, adding that the odor problem disappeared after the firm closed.

Meier declared the mistrial shortly before noon and asked Pritsker to decide during lunch whether to seek a retrial.

Weaver, when asked if he thought Pritsker would seek a retrial, responded bitterly: “Keith Pritsker would like to put me in jail, and I have the same feeling about him.” Weaver, a 65-year old Sylmar resident, claimed he had “been set up from the very beginning. . . . One school bus puts out more pollution than my entire factory did.”

“We’ve got bad air. We’ve got bad water,” he said. “You can’t point a finger at one little guy and make him a goat.”

The trial featured 68 exhibits and nearly 60 witnesses, including meteorologists and other experts called by each side. Pritsker said it was the longest trial he had ever been involved in, and McCament said it was his longest in several years.

One juror called the case “long, tedious and boring.”

“Are we glad it’s over?” another said. “You don’t know the half of it!”

During closing arguments last week, McCament reminded the jury that many other companies near the school used chemicals.

He argued that, when odor complaints first arose in the fall of 1983, AQMD officials failed to adequately investigate other firms that might have been to blame. From early in the case, the officials told teachers that the spa maker was the culprit, he said.

As a result, McCament said, “gradually the complaints increased and it was like a snowball going downhill, gathering momentum, focused at Mr. Weaver and his business.”

Were authorities “really interested in finding out” who was responsible, “or were they interested in making one company the scapegoat so they could close the door on the case?” McCament asked.

But Pritsker told jurors that testimony by teachers and air-district officials clearly established that the offending odor was styrene and that it came from Custom Home Spas.

The spa plant, Pritsker said, had relied on a classic “SODDI” defense--that “some other dude did it.” McCament, he said, was asking jurors to see the case as “some sort of a grand conspiracy and a mass delusion” among people at the school.

Pritsker had told the jurors that Weaver was “not an evil man” but “rather indifferent” and “too busy making play toys for the rich” to worry about fouling the air.

The seven remaining counts against the company are punishable by a fine of up to $7,000.

The charges against Weaver carry a maximum fine of $9,000 and up to 4 1/2 years in jail.