L.A. Seeks Relief From Unsightly Auto Shops : Proposal Would Set Up Yearly Inspections
The maroon Mercedes was having its innards doctored. The problem was that the operating room was a sidewalk.
Guiseppe Gallelli, owner of the North Hollywood auto repair shop where the car had been brought earlier this week, acknowledged that he was breaking the law by blocking the sidewalk. He said he would have brought the car inside the shop to fix it except that “I only just opened and the car in front of the Mercedes has a flat tire.”
But Gallelli’s neighbors in the 10800 block of Otsego Street and people elsewhere in the San Fernando Valley say their communities are plagued by auto body and repair shop owners who flout city regulations, parking battered cars on side streets and repairing vehicles outdoors instead of in buildings at least partially enclosed, as required by law.
“These people have a right to do business, but they have to do it as if they lived in the neighborhoods themselves,” said Kurt Hunter, president of the North Hollywood Homeowners Assn.
Hunter and other Valley residents concerned about unsightly auto body and repair shops are pinning their hopes for cleaner streets on a proposed city ordinance that would establish a $1.75-million annual inspection program to monitor the businesses citywide.
More Inspectors
The ordinance would enable the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety to hire 15 new inspectors and would be funded by a $300 fee per shop, said Art Johnson, a department official. The inspectors would also have the power to impose fines of $750 per violation, he said.
Currently, three inspectors respond only to complaints and are so overworked that they “are not doing a very good job” regulating the 4,000 auto body and repair shops throughout Los Angeles, Johnson said. Consequently, most auto body and repair shop owners have been able to operate virtually unregulated, he said.
The city does not keep statistics on the number of auto-related businesses in the Valley. But residents of North Hollywood, Van Nuys and other communities have long complained about violations by shop owners. Residents of other areas, such as Chatsworth and Reseda, are seeking to ban new shops.
“The auto businesses that cause problems are the nastiest thing we have going in the city’s neighborhoods today,” Johnson said.
Commission OK
The ordinance, proposed early last year by City Council members Nate Holden and Ruth Galanter, was approved unanimously by the Planning Commission in July. It is being reviewed by the city attorney’s office and is expected to easily win City Council approval this fall.
The measure has the backing of the San Fernando Valley chapter of the Automotive Service Councils, which represents 162 owners. The industry association is “opposed to grease pits because they ruin things for the good guys,” said chapter President John Besancon, who owns a shop in North Hollywood.
But Conrad Bebak, who has run an auto repair shop in North Hollywood for more than 20 years, said complying with the ordinance would be an economic hardship. He said he occasionally parks cars on residential side streets and performs repair work outdoors for lack of space.
“My father and I have been renting this place on a month-to-month basis because the owner won’t give us a lease,” Bebak said. “How can I invest in the improvements I need and the city wants when I’m in that situation?”
Valley residents who have complained about the shops called the proposed ordinance a welcome step.
But Don Schultz, president of the Van Nuys Homeowners Assn., urged the city to hire more than 15 additional inspectors. And North Hollywood’s Hunter said the city should require owners to landscape their properties and put up solid walls to shield the lots from the street.
Santa Monica recently passed an ordinance requiring the 230 owners there to beautify their shops, city planner Kenyon Webster said. Owners have been given a year to comply with the new regulations, including landscaping 10% of their property and putting up solid walls.
James Carney, a chief inspector with the Los Angeles Building and Safety Department, said the city does not require solid walls because police officials are afraid that the privacy would encourage owners to engage in crime, such as stripping stolen vehicles.
But Detective Glen Higgins, who heads the Police Department’s Valley auto theft task force, said that under state law, officers whose primary responsibility is investigating auto-related crime do not need a search warrant to inspect the shops. He said he believes that shielding the shops is a good idea because those that are rundown bring blight and crime.
