Access for Disabled: 5 Firms Targeted : Discrimination: In announcing crackdown on local businesses, city attorney says L.A. could face federal charges because of deficiencies in public buildings.

Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn, announcing a crackdown on local businesses that fail to accommodate the disabled, warned Wednesday that the city could face similar federal charges unless it significantly improves access to its own buildings.

“I can’t prosecute the city, but there are other agencies looking at us, including the state and federal government,” Hahn said as he announced the filing of five criminal complaints against the owners of office and commercial buildings. “And if we are not careful, we (city officials) may end up in the same situation.

“Government needs to make sure it complies with all the laws just as it asks everyone else to do.”

Despite Hahn’s comments, disabled activists said the crackdown on local businesses stops short of launching a similar effort to upgrade what they consider one of the least accessible buildings in town--City Hall.

“This is an issue that has faced people with disabilities for years in Los Angeles,” said Stan Greenberg, director of the Westside Center for Independent Living. “There is absolutely no evidence we can see . . . that anything is being done on any level to make City Hall more accessible.”

Disabled activist Dorik Perman called the crackdown a “toe dance for the media.”

Although federal laws enacted in 1973 mandated that all city facilities must be made accessible by 1980, the majority of doors, bathrooms, drinking fountains and telephones at City Hall are not reachable by mobility-impaired people, city officials acknowledged.

“Forget about the offices of Councilmen John Ferraro and Joel Wachs--most people in wheelchairs can’t get there,” said Ken Lesser, a wheelchair-bound planning assistant at City Hall. “They’re only reachable by stairs or an extremely tiny elevator.”

An aide to Ferraro acknowledged that the small elevator to the mezzanine office may be inconvenient for people in wheelchairs.

These and other shortcomings could generate potentially large monetary claims against the city under the Federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, according to a report prepared last year by the City Administrative Officer.

The ADA allows people who believe they have been discriminated against on the basis of a disability to file charges or complaints in private lawsuits or with the U.S. attorney general. No such suits have been filed against the city, Building and Safety officials said.

In addition, the federal government may deny grant and revenue-sharing funds if the city is found to be in violation of the laws. In fiscal year 1991-92, the city received more than $196 million in federal grants, officials said.

The job of coordinating compliance with the federal laws belongs to the Mayor’s Office for the Disabled, which has not had sufficient staff to provide more than job referral and counseling programs, a spokeswoman for the office said.

Hoping to stave off federal lawsuits, the office is seeking a coordinator to oversee city compliance with the federal laws.

“There is a lot of work to do to meet the (federal) standards, but we only have so much money to do it and also take care of the city’s 600 buildings,” said Randall Bacon, general manager of city General Services.

As it stands, wheelchair-accessible public restrooms are only available on Floors 2, 4 and 18 of City Hall, which was built in 1927, officials said.

Meanwhile, for building owners across Los Angeles, “there are city regulations on the books, but enforcement provisions are very weak,” said Jim Usui, chief of the disabled access division of the Department of Building and Safety. “Our enforcement options for someone who says ‘Go to hell’ have been limited.”

Hahn’s enforcement campaign, undertaken in conjunction with the city Department of Building and Safety, aims to correct compliance problems he said should have been dealt with years ago.

“These owners,” Hahn said, “will be subject to a sentence of six months in jail or a $1,000 fine for each misdemeanor count.”

Named as defendants in the five criminal complaints filed Tuesday in Los Angeles Municipal Court were:

* Farshid Isfahani, 51, and Ashraf Isfahani, 53, of Encino, who were charged with two counts of failing to provide accessible parking at their Van Nuys mini-mart.

* Eli Sasson, 51, of Beverly Hills, who was charged with two violations stemming from a lack of adequate ramp facilities at his two-story retail and office building in Woodland Hills.

* Massoud Yashouafar, 30, of Encino, Ataollah Yashouafar, 69, of Beverly Hills, and Solyman Yashouafar, 46, of Beverly Hills, who were charged with four violations in connection with a lack of accessible disabled parking and restroom facilities at their 10-story office building in Tarzana.

* Jung C. Kim, of Rancho Palos Verdes, owner of a retail building in the Wilshire District, and Antonio Sarte, 51, who leases a pharmacy in the structure where city officials found two violations of lack of access ramps.

* Francesco Simplicio, 37, and Adriana Simplicio, 36, owners of a Hollywood commercial building, and J. Herschel Blankenship, 38, of Agoura, who operates a music store without an adequate access ramp.

In the last case, city officials contend that Blankenship raised the showroom floor of his music store on Sunset Boulevard’s “Guitar Row” two feet above street level without obtaining a building permit, which would have required a wheelchair ramp.

Blankenship argued that although he is willing to pay for a new floor at his business, he cannot begin the work until the landlord rebuilds the building’s walls to comply with seismic regulations.

Other defendants named in the complaints could not be reached for comment Wednesday.