PANORAMA CITY : Vendors Apparently Flee Slum Building

City fire inspectors Wednesday found no propane burners in a Panorama City apartment complex--apparently because 10 tenants, threatened with eviction, have moved out.

“They flew,” said Genny Alberts, manager of the apartment complex at the 14700 block of Blythe Street, an area known as one of the Valley’s worst slums. “The saddest part of it is that they are going to do the same practice in another space.”

About 43 tenants were threatened with eviction unless they stopped using the propane stoves to illegally cook corn for their street vending enterprises. The evictions were prompted by a visit last week by Los Angeles fire, health, and building-and-safety officials, who have found more than 80 violations.

In addition to the illegal use of propane burners for indoor cooking, city officials have issued citations for holes in the ceilings, blocked fire doors, inoperable alarm systems and fire extinguishers, cockroach infestation and plumbing problems.

Fire Inspector Addison Birdine, who revisited the site Wednesday, said he found no sign of propane burners, but would not comment on the rest of the inspection. He said the case has been turned over to the Los Angeles Housing Task Force and prosecutors.

Another inspector, Mark Khitikian, said there was evidence that four of the fire doors still did not work properly and that one of the fire hoses was in poor condition. “The stuff we saw wasn’t really major,” Khitikian said.

Vendors were slated to participate in a $250,000 Mission College program that would provide a community kitchen in August.

One tenant, who identified himself only as Pablo, said he would soon be looking for another apartment where he can cook his 200 ears of corn a day. He said the Blythe Street slum was the first place he had found other vendors, many of them relatives, from his hometown of Puebla, Mexico.

“Now we are going to have to separate again,” Pablo shrugged, standing beside his wife and four children. “Each one is going to have to go his own way.”