‘Adults Only’ Sign Costs $40,000 as Suit Is Settled

The owners of a 44-unit apartment building in North Hollywood have agreed to an out-of-court settlement of a lawsuit that alleged they discriminated against families with children by having an “Adults Only” sign in front.

Alfred and Irene Allchorn of Northridge have agreed to pay $40,000 to settle their part of a May, 1985, class-action suit filed by the Santa Monica-based Fair Housing for Children Coalition.

The settlement, reached last month, still requires the approval of U. S. District Judge William D. Keller, who will preside at a hearing next Thursday at which anyone objecting to the settlement’s terms can address the court, said David Laufer, the Allchorns’ attorney.

The Allchorns, who own the Garden View Apartments at 10937 Fruitland Drive, were among eight Los Angeles landlords sued by the coalition for allegedly violating a 1980 city law forbidding discrimination against renters with children.

No other defendants have agreed to settle out of court, said Dora Ashford, executive director of the coalition, and the cases against the other seven landlords are scheduled for trial later this year in U.S. District Court.

Under the terms of the Allchorns’ settlement, most of the money will go toward legal costs.

Only $6,000 will be divided among people who can prove that they “are a member of family with children and have been denied an apartment or deterred from seeking an apartment” at Garden View from 1983 to 1985. So far, two families have made claims for damages, Ashford said.

The coalition will receive $2,000 in damages, and $32,000 will go to the law firm of Hunt & Cochran-Bond, which represents the coalition.

Laufer said the amount set aside for rebuffed renters was small because the Allchorns had always rented to people with children.

Previous Owner Put Up Sign

A previous owner of the apartments attached the sign to the building, Laufer said, and the Allchorns “simply never bothered to take it down, not really realizing how that could be construed.”

“It’s unfortunate,” Laufer said. “My clients have nothing against children at all. They just got caught up in a legal policy. There were children living there when the suit was filed and there still are children living there.”

Ashford, however, said the presence of the sign “was enough to discourage renters who were looking for an apartment and could easily be seen as a violation of rights. It was a violation of law and we wanted to correct it.”

Under the proposed settlement, the Allchorns will be required to post a sign on the building identifying the complex as one that is available to families with children. Future advertisements for vacant units will have to specify that children are welcome, and the landlords will have to “give preference to qualified families with children . . ..”

The owners will also have to keep a record of all people who apply for vacancies.

“The problem in Los Angeles today is that there still is a lot of discrimination against renters with kids,” Ashford said.