Success Spoils Van Nuys Real Estate Seminar

The first thing firefighters did to reduce potentially dangerous crowding at a Van Nuys hotel Thursday was order everybody to stay inside.

Officials said they temporarily sealed the exits of the Airtel Plaza Hotel because they worried that people would rush to the doors--preventing an accurate head count needed to show illegal crowding--after the organizer of a realtors’ conference announced that the Fire Department was closing the event.

“Our procedure is we make sure nobody leaves,” Los Angeles Fire Department Battalion Chief Tom Stires said. “We keep people in so we can count them out in an orderly fashion.”

Fire Department Inspector Mike Rojas said firefighters counted 883 people occupying a space with a legally permitted limit of 317. He said the hotel manager and the organizer of the event--the San Fernando Valley Board of Realtors--were cited for allowing too large of a crowd and for blocking exits.

Fifteen firefighters and two Los Angeles police officers were dispatched to the hotel after an anonymous caller alerted authorities about the crowding, Stires said.

The real estate seminar and cocktail party was ordered shut about 4:30 p.m.--3 1/2 hours before its scheduled close--leaving people to discuss finance and investment opportunities around a bar hastily set up on the sidewalk outside the hotel’s main entrance.

“It was kind of a disappointment,” said Mark Shibashi, who was representing Investors Title Co. at the conference.

“Everybody was having a real good time,” he said. “The women were great.”

The event was free and open to the public, organizers said. Rojas said people were orderly after being told to leave.