A Relationship Gone Rotten : Litigation: Artists and factory are squabbling over what artists say are nauseating fumes. The firm says neighbors made malicious complaints to AQMD and has filed slander suit.

On one side of the alley in lower Downtown’s industrial belt, artists live and work in a pleasant compound of renovated lofts that offer low rents, big spaces and easy camaraderie. On the other side of the cinder-block wall, factory workers produce and ship the polyester stuffing that goes into bedding and winter jackets.

The 8-year-old Santa Fe Art Colony and the California Fiberloft firm, which opened in 1977, coexisted peacefully at first on the block between 24th and 25th streets near the Los Angeles River. But no more.

A squabble over what the artists allege are nauseating fumes from the factory recently escalated when California Fiberloft filed a suit against colony residents alleging slander and conspiracy for repeated complaints to the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD). The result is a court battle that raises issues of free speech, a government agency’s right to keep its files confidential and a business’s attempt to face its accusers.

“I just couldn’t believe it,” sculptor Jean Hoenninger said of the factory’s lawsuit. “Part of me didn’t want to take it seriously. Another part was scared.”

Citing the right of a citizen to blow the whistle on possible pollution, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California is representing Hoenninger and at least one other artist cited in the slander suit. A hearing is scheduled for Nov. 2 in Superior Court in Los Angeles.

At the same hearing, California Fiberloft will argue that it should be given the names of anyone else who asked the AQMD to investigate the smell. The regional agency is fighting to keep those identities out of the company’s hands. AQMD inspectors have cited the firm three times since August for public nuisance odors, allegations that face review by AQMD superiors.

Mark Bidner, one of the factory’s owners, said he really doesn’t want the $300,000 restitution his suit seeks. He said he is more interested in learning the identities of complainants so he can prove them wrong and stop the many business interruptions that AQMD inspections have caused over the last five years.

Besides, Bidner added, his court action is partly a protest against the city’s help, through a $1.2-million low-interest loan, in turning the former terry-cloth robe tailoring plant next door into a home for painters and sculptors.

“I feel for these people. I really do. But I also question the wisdom of living in an area with meat rendering plants and brass foundries,” he said. “Quite frankly, it stinks down here.”

But Bidner insisted that the overwhelming stink the artists complain about does not come from his plant, which has 97 employees who sometimes work around the clock. Inside, ovens heated up to 300 degrees bake a polyester, resin and water mixture to create stuffing sold mainly to other manufacturers. If the resulting emissions are so sickening, then why, Bidner asks, aren’t he, his partners and workers choking all day on the fumes?

That’s because, the artists contend, the smokestacks are pointed away from the factory’s property and directly into their windows, and are aided by winds. A visitor recently smelled a slight but distinct chemical odor that residents said intensifies greatly at odd hours.

“It makes me physically ill,” said Hoenninger, 44, who rents a ground-floor unit that is separated from the factory by the narrow alley where she stores her cement mixer and saws. Her high-ceiling workroom contains her triangular concrete and glass sculptures that memorialize victims of the Holocaust. Pinned on her living room walls are black and white photos of the former Nazi concentration camps and cemeteries in Poland that have stirred her art.

Hoenninger and other tenants in the 57-unit colony insist that they are not prissy gentry invading turf where they don’t belong. Instead, they describe themselves as hardy folk who are used to living in industrial areas and who also create fumes and noise in their work. They were drawn to the colony for the low rents required for many units under the loan arrangements between its developers and the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency; for example, Hoenninger pays $687 for 1,200 square feet.

And they cherish the friendly, safe atmosphere of the tree-lined courtyard. “We professionally share ideas, share processes, share materials. It’s a wonderful community,” Hoenninger said.

Textile artist Tim Peoples, who is also being sued, recalled his childhood in Akron, Ohio, where rubber factories spewed pollution. “So I’ve smelled some bad smells, but nothing like this,” Peoples, 47, said. “It’s debilitating and you want to get out, but where can you go? It’s your home.” Like other residents, he has spent thousands of dollars on improvements and fixtures.

Two other colony residents named in the slander-conspiracy suit have evaded process servers, and others fear that they are among the 50 John and Jane Does also being sought. Ironically, Peoples said that he never called the AQMD but that he was included because he spoke directly to factory managers about the odor. AQMD files reportedly include other artists’ names.

Keeping those identities confidential is central to the investigative process, according to the AQMD. “If the district is not able to guarantee the confidentiality of a complainant’s identity, citizens will be reluctant to come forward and aid in the enforcement of air pollution laws,” the agency’s court papers say.

Peter Mieras, AQMD’s principal deputy prosecutor, confirmed that California Fiberloft was cited three times since August for odors and said the matter remains under investigation. Mieras declined further comment about that review. (The plant owners said they are confident they will be cleared of those citations.)

The ACLU emphasized that the dispute raises important 1st Amendment issues and tests a California law that specifies protection for such complaints. “Even if the claims turn out to be false, it’s really important that people be allowed to complain to a public agency,” said Raleigh Levine, an attorney in private practice who is handling the matter for the ACLU. “The idea that people could be scared off from making complaints for fear of getting slapped with a suit like this would really undermine the statute.”

Cynthia Rubin, the factory’s attorney, countered that the statute does not protect unfounded complaints that are intended to cause harm. She compared the situation to not allowing an accused criminal to face his accusers.

“This is harassment, out and out harassment,” Rubin said. “I would say it just doesn’t smell right, but that would be a bad pun.”

In 1991, AQMD monitoring of air quality in the colony courtyard found that California Fiberloft probably contributed to elevated levels of methyl chloroform, although the amounts of all emissions did not violate health hazard standards. Residents protested that the study was not conducted properly.

Subsequently, attempts were made toward a compromise. The factory owners said they spent $12,000 on a consultant who reportedly found no pollution violations. The colony owners, who include arts patron and restaurateur Marvin Zeidler and sculptor Leonard Skuro, offered to share the cost of raising the smokestacks. More recently, friendly communications over the alley wall have ceased.

Rubin suggests the firm might move all its operations to a satellite plant in South Carolina if the complaints continue. The artists say their livelihoods, and possibly their health, are at stake.

“We are not trying to take anybody’s job,” said Peoples, whose loft opens onto the colony’s courtyard. “We’d just like to take a breath of fresh air.”