Clark Hotel Residents Will Fight Eviction
The Chinese government has started eviction proceedings against six longtime residents of downtown Los Angeles’ Clark Hotel, but the move may break rent-stabilization laws, city officials said Friday.
While the Chinese justified the evictions in papers filed at City Hall by stating that they are permanently removing the rooms from use, officials say that simply converting the rooms into higher-priced accommodations may make the evictions illegal.
“I’m not sure that this constitutes permanent removal,” said Barbara Zeidman, the director of Los Angeles’ rent-stabilization program.
Tenants said they will meet today to plan a course of action to fight the evictions. In 1979, the same tenants won a court battle against a plan to renovate the Clark.
‘It’s Important’
“We’ve seen this before,” said Don Manning, a resident at the Clark for 24 years. “It’s important that we put this down immediately.”
A Chinese government-run company, under the name May Wah International, purchased the 74-year-old structure at 426 S. Hill St. in March for $9.5 million. Two weeks ago, workers started construction of the $3-million Yuet Lei Friendship Store after they tore out the first two stories. Scheduled to open in December, the store will be the first permanent U.S. marketplace for Chinese imports.
The building’s manager, Paolo Vinci, said the 30-day “notices to quit” given to the six residents of the eighth floor of the Clark last Friday is the first step in May Wah’s $4-million renovation plan for the upper floors of the Clark. Other eviction notices are not immediately planned, he added.
In accordance with the city’s rent-stabilization laws, May Wah has offered the tenants threatened with eviction $2,000 to $5,000 moving allowances, depending on their occupancy status.
Manning, who organized today’s scheduled meeting, said tenant efforts to meet with May Wah officials to find out whether they would all be evicted have been unsuccessful.
According to the project’s architect, Bernard Judge, top-level May Wah managers do not speak English. Company President Xiang Yang Wan, who signed the eviction notices, speaks only Chinese and French, he said.
Vinci maintained that his bosses have the right to evict the Clark’s 60 rent-stabilized tenants, many of them elderly, because the renovated 500-room structure will be a commercial hotel with no long-term residents.
Gwen Poindexter, a deputy Los Angeles city attorney specializing in rent-stabilization law, said she was not sure of the legality of the proceedings and added that a tenant challenge to the eviction would have to be settled in court.
Such a case would be precedent-setting. “We have never had the question before of taking a hotel with permanent guests and putting it to temporary-guest status only,” Zeidman said.
