Local News in Brief : Apartment Owners Biased, Panel Rules
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Owners of a Hawaiian Gardens apartment building discriminated against children by imposing restrictive “occupancy standards,” the state Fair Employment and Housing Commission has ruled.
In a decision made public Wednesday and described as the first of its kind in the state, the commission found that Daleen and Morris Tolmasov of Lakewood were unfairly prevented from living at the Marri Brooks Apartments because of an occupancy rule allowing only two people in a two-bedroom apartment. The Tolmasovs had one child when they applied in 1986.
Since the state Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that landlords cannot ban children, occupancy standards have become common, commission attorney Dick Osumi said.
Testers were sent to the Bloomfield Avenue building, Osumi said. Three adults were accepted to rent a two-bedroom unit while adults with children were turned away.
The commission ordered owners James C. Beard and Robert J. Hoshaw of Newport Beach to pay the Tolmasovs $5,000 in damages.
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