Complaints Pile Up Over Trash Firm : Safety: The city attorney calls the AB Rubbish Disposal Service ‘the ultimate scofflaws’ for violating numerous state vehicle codes. The company’s owner says authorities are ‘picking on’ him.

Last week, just like every other week, Alfred and Elsie Banuelos’ powder-blue garbage trucks rolled off the AB Rubbish Disposal Service lot to begin picking up trash along their routes.

It was business as usual, except for one thing: The Banueloses were arrested Monday on charges that they have repeatedly allowed unsafe garbage trucks on the road--enough times for them to be called “the ultimate scofflaws” by the city attorney.

After the Banueloses’ release on bail, another one of their trucks was impounded Wednesday by the California Highway Patrol as it entered a Calabasas landfill.

“I have a lot of problems with the city,” acknowledged Alfred Banuelos, who lives with his wife at the company’s headquarters at 1913 Pontius Ave. in West Los Angeles. “I want to survive and work and work and work. . . . But it seems to me that everything is against me.”

Banuelos said he was surprised that he and his wife were arrested and hauled off to jail, and he said that authorities are “picking on” him for problems his truck drivers often never told him about.

Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn couldn’t disagree more. In a complaint made public after their arrests, Hahn charged the Banueloses each with six criminal counts of violating state vehicle codes. Each count of failing to file proof with the court that a vehicle equipment citation has been corrected is punishable by up to one year in jail and/or a $1,000 fine.

“Not only have they shown a stunning contempt for the law,” Hahn said in a statement, “but also a total disregard for the safety of their drivers and the other people on the roads that their trucks travel.”

Hahn said the couple’s trucks, sometimes weighing more than 25 tons each and overloaded by as much as 1,700 pounds of garbage, had been cited for having faulty steering, damaged tires, inoperable brakes, no headlights, horns or turn signals, loose and missing lug nuts on wheels and were “being driven around Los Angeles by unqualified drivers without liability insurance.”

Citations were repeatedly issued to drivers for failure to have proof of liability insurance and for operating trucks without license plates and registration, the city attorney’s office said. Three company drivers had no driver’s licenses and a fourth had a suspended license; drivers did not inspect vehicles prior to driving them, and they did not submit daily vehicle condition reports as required by law, according to Hahn’s office.

“It is the most serious case I have ever seen,” said Deputy City Atty. Don Cocek, who is prosecuting the Banueloses. “I’ve never seen anything like it, (and) no one else I know has either.”

Cocek described the trucks as “rolling piles of junk” that have been involved in five accidents over the last three years while collecting garbage on routes around West Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley and while traveling back and forth to the Lost Hills Dump in Calabasas. He said he did not know who was at fault in the collisions.

Many of the traffic stops resulting in citations were made as loaded AB Rubbish trucks were heading northbound on a steep downhill section of the San Diego Freeway between the Mulholland Pass and Ventura Freeway, Cocek said.

“They are accidents rolling down the freeways waiting to happen,” said CHP Officer Martha Davidson, who said she issued many of the citations, arrested the couple and ordered their vehicle impounded this week.

The city attorney alleges that, in all, the Banueloses ignored 110 citations over the last four years for dangerous equipment violations and other offenses by their fleet of eight garbage trucks. Hahn said the couple also ignored repeated warnings sent by CHP officers, and ignored notices sent by the court system regarding the CHP citations. They also did not respond to verbal notices authorities issued to Elsie Banuelos when she picked up impounded trucks, Hahn said.

The criminal complaint cites six AB Rubbish trucks as being ticketed for serious safety violations on 38 occasions during the past year, and said the company has a history of violations and ignored citations dating back to March 3, 1986. The citations carried a total of $30,750 in fines issued on AB Rubbish trucks and drivers, according to the city attorney’s office.

After their arrest, Banuelos and his wife were taken to separate police stations for booking. Both were ordered to pay $10,000 bail. Banuelos said he spent a night and day in jail before his daughter posted bail.

In an interview, Banuelos said he could not understand why Hahn and CHP officers were going after him with such a vengeance. “They really don’t like me at all, I guess,” Banuelos said. “They are trying to put me out of business.”

Sometimes his drivers never told him about tickets they received, he said. But he always tried to keep the trucks running even though repairs cost him as much as $4,000 a month, adding, “I have the bills to prove it.” He also said he always tried to pay the fines.

Banuelos said he would often try to get the trucks inspected after having them fixed to correct violations, “and nobody would do it.”

“Sometimes I can’t afford to pay. But I pay and pay and pay,” Banuelos said. In his 30 years as a garbage hauler in West Los Angeles, he said, he has never had major problems until a few months ago.

“I don’t want to have a problem with the law,” he said. “I don’t want to do bad things.”

A neighbor, who asked not to be identified, said he often sees mechanics repairing the aging trucks in the fenced-in lot behind AB Rubbish.

“They try their best to keep the trucks in good working order,” said the neighbor. “I think they are poor people who are doing the best they can.”