Court Orders Owner to Eliminate Drug Trafficking at Hotel

A Los Angeles man who said he hoped to house the homeless and the elderly in the Skid Row hotel he bought less than two months ago was instead ordered Thursday by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to institute a series of stringent steps aimed at eliminating what city officials say is a “cesspool of drug trafficking” there.

At the request of Deputy City Atty. Pamela Albers, Judge Ricardo A. Torres ordered Travelers Hotel owner Bruce Lendsey to, among other things, post signs prohibiting drug activity, provide police with keys to the hotel, require patrons to produce picture identification and ask them to provide a pay stub or other verification of how they support themselves.

Lendsey, who bought the 27-unit building at 553 S. Ceres Ave. in May, appeared in court without a lawyer, explaining, “I came down here to show the judge I don’t want to avoid the issue here.”

“I kind of got myself in the hot seat,” he explained before the hearing. “When I purchased the property, I was told there was some drug activity there, but only a very little.”

Down Payment

Lendsey said he bought the hotel for $420,000, with a cash down payment of $12,000, and plans to refurbish it.

“‘I did it in good faith,” he said. “I wanted to get homeless people and senior citizens in there.”

It was only after he took the building over, Lendsey claimed, that he learned “the whole hotel is selling drugs.”

During the last 11 months, more than 32 drug arrests have been made at the hotel, according to the city attorney’s office. Along with the arrests, police seized 137 bags of cocaine, almost 1,000 balloons of heroin and additional quantities of a mixture of cocaine and heroin known as “speedballs.”

“The problem has been going on there for years and years,” Albers said. “The Police Department has been taking a Band-Aid approach and doing the best they can, but the ownership has changed six times in the past year and a half.”

Owners, Albers said, would pledge to clean up the building and then sell the property before making any substantial improvements. Even though Lendsey is a new owner, Albers said the city attorney’s office decided to act now in an effort to break the cycle.