Unwelcome Wagon : Travelers Uneasy With Unofficial Greeters at L.A. Bus Depot

That wasn’t exactly a red carpet that was rolled out for visitor Opal Cronk when she set foot in Los Angeles the other day.

It was a human tide of street people that surged toward the frightened Morro Bay grandmother after she stepped from the bus and claimed her luggage at the downtown Greyhound station.

Sidewalks outside the bus terminal were crowded with a ragtag collection of men hustling drugs, begging for spare change and soliciting “jobs,” like carrying new arrivals’ bags.

Cronk took one look and retreated into the station to wait for a ride.

“If I hadn’t come for my grandson’s high school graduation in Fountain Valley, I’d turn around and go back home,” she shuddered. “This is real scary. We don’t have all of this around where I live.”

Welcome to Los Angeles.

Most cities do not greet visitors by giving them the bum’s rush. But that’s what the 350,000 travelers who will pass through Los Angeles’ main bus station this summer can anticipate.

The 23-year-old terminal is located near the center of the city’s Skid Row, where growing numbers of homeless and derelicts congregate around soup kitchens, flophouses and voucher hotels.

Although bus stations throughout urban America generally are located in less than upscale neighborhoods, officials say conditions around the Los Angeles terminal are more intense than elsewhere. Most tourists coming to Los Angeles avoid the experience by arriving in their cars or at airports.

The deteriorating neighborhood around the bus station is sending Greyhound executives scrambling to find a safer place in the metropolitan area to relocate their bus depot.

“It’s darn scary here, no question about it,” said Robert Bonds, Greyhound’s Los Angeles terminal manager.

“I walked outside once at 7 o’clock at night. I won’t do it again. My advice to passengers is, if you go outside those front doors, be real careful. My concern is passengers’ safety.”

The situation prompted a handful of street people two months ago to launch a self-styled cleanup campaign outside the terminal.

The transients’ do-it-yourself crackdown on loitering and panhandling at the terminal is being led by Jerry Lafayette, who describes himself as a homeless ex-drug addict. He says his concern is financial.

There is money to be made by helping bus passengers carry their bags and hail taxis, Lafayette said. As much as $150 a day can be earned in tips from travelers and taxi and shuttle operators.

But those who pounce on travelers spoil it for everybody, he said.

“If 10 guys run to a cab when it pulls up out here to wash windows and grab bags, you scare everybody, even the driver,” said Lafayette, a 37-year-old former courier service employee.

He said he is trying to chase away drug addicts who hang around the depot and pester travelers for cash to spend on rock cocaine from Skid Row dealers. He is urging those who want to work outside the bus station to wear clean clothes and to take turns approaching travelers.

Results have been mixed. Lafayette said he has recruited six former addicts to work in such a semi-organized manner. But dozens of other homeless men ignore the blunt-spoken Lafayette’s harangues and continue to loiter at the depot entrance.

Two visitors from Sonora, Mexico, Elizabeth Siller and Maria Gonzales, seemed dazed by the scene as strangers moved in on them from all sides near the bus station doorway last week.

Several offered to help the women with their luggage. One persistently tried to persuade them to take an unlicensed “bandit van” to their destination. Another peddled phony gold jewelry, waving a necklace in their faces.

“Your first impression of L.A. when you get off the bus here is, ‘Oh my God--what have I come to?’ ” said Harold Patton, 39, who said he is a recovering cocaine addict who has joined in the self-policing effort.

The bus terminal’s rough neighborhood works to the hustlers’ advantage, Lafayette admitted. But sometimes it is hard to distinguish the self-appointed crew trying to police the depot from the street hustlers who are frightening visitors.

Turning toward travelers leaving the station, Lafayette shouted: “Welcome to L.A! You are in the heart of Skid Row! You go one block this way or one block that way, anything can happen! I will be your personal security! I will escort you safely to your car!”

Such an exhortation “borders on extortion” in the view of Los Angeles Police Capt. Jerry W. Conner, commander of the city’s Central Area police division. Conner’s office is in a bunker-like, brick police station located a few hundred yards from the entrance to the bus terminal.

Conner acknowledged that visitors “are totally vulnerable” when they step from the Greyhound depot. Although specific figures are unavailable, incidents of theft, assault and robbery in the area are common, he said.

“The bus station is the port of entry for a lot of people, and for them to be confronted by what you see out there just drives me up the wall,” Conner said.

“It embarrasses me because you’re right across the street from the Police Department.”

Police are prevented from clearing the bus station sidewalk because Greyhound does not own the walkway area next to the terminal, Conner said. Greyhound built the two-story depot in 1967, but sold the building four years ago to an investment firm.

The bus company leases the second floor as a passenger lounge and ticketing and boarding area. The first floor is rented as a mini-mall to shopkeepers who sell souvenirs and other tourist items.

Off-duty policemen hired as security guards by Greyhound are posted at two places on the second floor to keep street people out of passenger areas. But access to the first-floor mall--used by all passengers--is not restricted.

When police patrol the public sidewalk outside the terminal, transients and beggars simply step back a few feet onto private property, Conner said.

Greyhound officials say they are ready to pack up their buses and move.

“I spent today looking around for any place that has the space we need,” Enzo Orlando, the company’s area general manager, said last week.

Orlando said Greyhound needs at least an acre for a new terminal. He said he would prefer to stay close to the downtown area because of its central location.

“My druthers would be to cozy up to the Amtrak facilities over by Union Station,” he said. “With Metro Rail coming in, that will be a transportation center. We’re talking with them about it.”

The strike by union bus drivers, which began March 2, has had little effect on the street scene outside the terminal. But bus riders all over the country are talking with Greyhound about the problems at the Los Angeles depot.

Terminal manager Bonds said he often heard from worried passengers in Eugene, Ore., where he was assigned until March 6.

“They’d say, ‘If you have to route me through L.A., I won’t go.’ ”