Citizen Crime Fighter’s Van Nuys Headquarters Runs Afoul of Police : Law enforcement: Holding forth from a doughnut shop, Mary Lou Holte says she spots and reports evildoers. But officers say the place attracts undesirables and they want its hours curtailed.

Working out of a doughnut shop in a crime-plagued neighborhood in Van Nuys, Mary Lou Holte has been acclaimed by Barbara Walters, Larry King and the Wall Street Journal as a force for good, a citizen crime buster who stands up to street thieves and prostitutes.

But Holte now finds that the Los Angeles Police Department has called the shop a magnet for crime, branded it a public nuisance and asked that its operations be sharply restricted.

Acting at the request of police and neighbors, a city zoning official on Monday decided to investigate.

Holte, who has made the doughnut shop her base of operations for street patrols for five years, said rivals are trying to “blow me away from the corner.”

“Why don’t we just take Mary Lou and shoot her down?” Holte said. “They’re trying to do this just to get me away.”

It’s nothing personal, said Capt. James McMurray. Police have pursued similar actions against dozens of businesses, and McMurray said the primary concern remains the presence of suspected criminals and prostitutes.

“She talks to them,” said McMurray, who commands the Van Nuys station. “It’s like she’s gathering intelligence, but it’s certainly not like she’s driving them away.”

The shop provides “the same haven for the street people that are preying on the citizens of the neighborhood,” McMurray said. “If a prostitute sees a cop coming, she runs in and buys a cup of coffee and a doughnut. That makes it kind of hard to remove them from the road.”

Police and neighbors have filed complaints about the Sepulveda Boulevard shop, Orville’s Originals, along with California Coin Laundry, located in the same mini-mall. McMurray said he wants city zoning officials to implement the same restrictions imposed against a convenience market in the mall.

Two years ago, the city forced the convenience store to cut back its 24-hour schedule to 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. on weekdays and Saturdays, and to close at midnight on Sundays. The store also was forced to hire a night security guard.

The desire to restrict hours at the doughnut shop has puzzled Ulysses Contedor, owner of the shop for five years. Holte has no financial connection with the shop.

“Prostitutes come into my store for doughnuts, coffee, but never do their job here,” he said. “For me, this place is as safe as any place in Los Angeles.”

Contedor also blamed Holte for his troubles.

“She’s not good for me,” Contedor said. “Before she came here, I had no problems. The city did not say, ‘I want to cut the hours at your store.’ ”

Holte, 45, began her crusade against street crime after she was nearly raped while walking home from Valley College. When she is not walking Sepulveda with her flashlight and note pad in search of suspected criminal activity, Holte spends her time looking for trouble from the doughnut shop.

She reports the license plate numbers of suspected criminals, confronts those she suspects of illegal activity and occasionally calls police for help from the doughnut shop. She made one citizen’s arrest at the shop.

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Recently, Holte has been hailed in the national news media for her crime-fighting exploits. Barbara Walters lauded her as a “fantastic . . . one-woman vigilance team” on ABC-TV’s “20/20,” and the Wall Street Journal called her “the vigilante of Van Nuys.” She was featured on the nationally syndicated “Jerry Springer Show” in Chicago, has done numerous radio interviews, and received the “Doberman Award” from a lock manufacturer.

“The media made Mary Lou,” Contedor said. “She comes in, but she doesn’t have any power.”

Not so, says Holte. She claims to have talked several prostitutes out of their line of work.

“I have definitely helped the police clean up a lot of the crime,” Holte said. “When I go into the doughnut shop, they clear out. (The criminals) know better.”

McMurray acknowledges that Holte has occasionally been a valuable tipster.

Nevertheless, Holte said McMurray is biased because of her criticisms of the police in the media and her complaints that residents are “jealous” of her recent fame. The problem, she says, is that the alcohol sales in the mini-mall are still luring undesirables. At the same time, she says police are unresponsive to her calls.

“I cannot tell you how many times we have called the police and they have not showed up,” Holte said.

Ironically, Holte’s crime-fighting calls for help may come back to haunt her. Horace Tramel, associate city zoning administrator, said Monday he will investigate the number of calls for help from the doughnut shop.

“The volume of police response is an indication of the problem,” Tramel said. Holte does not plan to go anywhere.

“Nobody is going to intimidate me and nobody is going to control me and I’m not going to stop what I’m doing,” said Holte. “You don’t get the awards and you don’t get the national attention if you’ve done something wrong.”