VAN NUYS : Controversial Shop Reduces Its Hours

Facing a city investigation, owners of a Van Nuys doughnut shop that has been called a magnet for crime have voluntarily changed the store’s hours to improve relations with police and to prevent a self-proclaimed citizen crime-fighter from using it as her base of operations.

The move was praised Wednesday by Los Angeles police, who had complained that the 24-hour Orville’s Originals on Sepulveda Boulevard was a public nuisance that has become a hangout for prostitutes and other street criminals.

“We’ve won,” said Capt. James McMurray, who commands the Los Angeles Police Department’s Van Nuys station. “The idea of voluntary cooperation is what we’ve been working for all along.”

Owners Zuita and Ulysses Contador said they decided last week to close the shop between midnight and 5 a.m. in hopes of keeping out street crime fighter Mary Lou Holte.

Although they acknowledge that prostitutes are often customers, they said they believe Holte’s activities to be the cause of a city zoning department investigation which began last week at McMurray’s request.

Police had said the investigation could result in the city forcing the Contadors to reduce hours of operation, hire a security guard and other conditions.

“We are losing a lot of business, but we don’t want any more trouble with the police or with (Holte),” Zuita Contador said. “We are just doing this because if we close during these hours, (Holte) doesn’t have any place to go.”

City zoning officials were unavailable to comment on the impact the reduced hours will have on the investigation, which also targets a Laundromat in the same mini-mall.

Holte refused to comment Wednesday on the fate of her vigils or her presence at the doughnut shop.

But Zuita Contador said that since the hours changed last week, Holte has not been in the shop.

For the last five years, Holte, 45, has made the doughnut shop the base of operations for her street patrols, in which she confronts and reports people she suspects to be criminals. She also has made at least one citizen’s arrest there.

Recently, Holte’s exploits as a crime fighter landed her on such television programs as “20/20” and “The Larry King Show,” as well as in other national media. Police have said they see Holte both as an effective tipster and as an ineffective security force at the doughnut shop.

Holte has claimed that the city’s investigation is being spurred by her rivals, including other neighborhood watch groups and police, whom she believes are jealous of her recent publicity and are trying to drive her away from the corner.

But McMurray did not claim a personal victory over Holte.

“I have no desire to keep her out of anywhere,” McMurray said of Holte. “It’s just that the doughnut shop is a mecca (for criminals) at certain hours.”