Hotel Owner Faces Substandard-Housing Counts

An Anaheim resident who owns an apartment building in the Los Angeles Skid Row area was charged Thursday with 36 criminal counts alleging substandard housing conditions at the Baker Hotel at 311 E. Winston St.

Rodents, roaches, corroded floors, sealed safety exits, broken heaters and peeling paint were among violations cited at the hotel, which has many residential tenants.

Helen Bina, 31, if convicted, could face maximum penalties of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine per violation, said Mike Qualls, a spokesman for the Los Angeles city attorney’s office.

Qualls said Bina was charged in 1987 and 1989 in connection with similar slumlike conditions at the hotel, which she then owned with Shlomo Bina, her husband. In the 1989 case, the Olympia Hotel at 1203 E. 7th St., which the couple owned with Helen Bina’s brother, Daryoush Daian, was also cited.

In both cases concerning the Baker Hotel, Shlomo Bina took the blame since he was deemed the principal operator of the property, and charges against Helen Bina were dropped, Qualls said.

Helen Bina became full owner of the Baker Hotel in a divorce settlement last November, Qualls said, and has failed to comply with repair requests, leading the city to investigate the property again.

“She made basically no effort to comply with the repairs,” Qualls said. “Since then, she has shown the same lack of interest her husband had.”

Helen Bina could not be reached for comment.

On May 30, Shlomo Bina and Daian were sentenced to two months in jail and fined $28,106 for violations at two other properties they jointly owned, the Crescent Hotel and the Webb Hotel, also in the Skid Row area, Qualls said. Additionally, the two men jointly paid $17,258 and performed four months of community service because of the 1989 violation, he said.

Qualls said the Bina case was part of an ongoing crackdown on conditions in Skid Row.

Helen Bina is to be arraigned Aug. 23 in Los Angeles.