Prostitution Abatement Measure Targets Motel : Crime: Torrance owners of Westlake inn agree to comply with strict rules to avoid a lawsuit.

A motel owned by a Torrance couple has become a target as police get tough on prostitution in the Westlake district of Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles city attorney’s office has obtained a permanent injunction setting strict conditions on the Alvarado Palms Motel, owned by De Chang Peng and his wife, Su Cheng Peng. The couple avoided a trial related to a pending abatement lawsuit brought by the city when they agreed to operate under the conditions set forth in the injunction, said Maria Perez Manning, the deputy city attorney who handled the case.

The conditions include a ban on renting rooms to prostitutes, a rule allowing only registered guests to enter motel rooms and requirements that motel managers maintain locks on all doors, keep a registry of guests and ask guests to show identification when they register.

Prostitutes were using the motel at 931 S. Alvarado St., Manning said. “We had declarations from prostitutes saying that they use the motel and get (room) rates” of $12.50 an hour, he said. Detective Frank Lipus of the Police Department’s Administrative Vice Unit said that in the last two years police have made a “significant number of arrests along that corridor directly related to the motel.”

Although most of the arrests have been for prostitution and related crimes, there have also been arrests for possession of narcotics and assaults, City Atty. James Hahn said in a statement on the case.

“Prostitution tends to draw drug dealing and other, frequently violent, criminal activity like a magnet,” Hahn said.

Gerald Chaleff, an attorney representing the Pengs, said his clients intend to make a “concerted effort to ensure that the motel is run properly.”

A 1991 preliminary injunction against the Pengs resulted in a decline in crime around the motel, Manning said, but after the problems resurfaced the city asked for the permanent injunction, which was granted July 15.

Violation of the permanent injunction could result in a variety of sanctions, including fines, a jail sentence or closure of the motel.

Lipus said it was too soon to tell whether the motel is being run properly: “The healing process takes time. It’s not something that can be mended overnight.”