Long Beach : Wrigley Residents Will March to Protest Hotels

Residents in the Wrigley District of Long Beach--where police say more than half of the city’s prostitution arrests are made--plan to march in protest Saturday against six hotels they say are attracting prostitutes and drug dealers to their neighborhood.

The demonstration, scheduled from 1 to 4 p.m., is aimed at hotels in the 400 to 800 blocks of Pacific Coast Highway, just yards from the community of quaint Spanish houses and tree-lined streets on the city’s west end, organizers said.

Residents have complained for years that the low-budget hotels attract prostitutes who parade along the streets in seductive attire. “They have sex in the alley behind our back yards,” said Chris Kowal, an organizer and Wrigley resident. “We saw them on Easter Sunday out there, and they weren’t going to any corporate meeting.”

Residents say the police have been generally unresponsive and the hotel proprietors uncooperative.

About 200 residents participated in a similar march in August, 1988. The city subsequently required hotels and motels to secure special permits in an attempt to regulate the clientele, but residents say the restrictions were gradually relaxed. The city’s recent decision to allow construction of yet another motel was “a slap in the face,” protest organizer Pat Andrews said.

Protesters are scheduled to gather at 12:45 p.m. along the median strip at the end of Daisy Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway.