Motel Crackdown Is Good Policing Tool : Conditions Placed on Sepulveda Blvd. Establishments Are Reasonable Use of Zoning Rules

Six more motels have been cited in the continuing effort to wrest Sepulveda Boulevard from the grip of prostitution and crime. For the most part, the requirements placed on the establishments seem to be a reasonable, proper use of zoning regulations and other measures as tools for community-based policing.

Four of the five motels on the boulevard in Van Nuys, for example, have been the scene of as many as 87 arrests in a given calendar year. Of the five Van Nuys motels cited, only the El Cortez may have represented something of a stretch, with 19 crimes in a two-year period.

All five establishments have been ordered by a city zoning administrator to fulfill 27 conditions or risk being shut down. The order includes hiring their own security guards and working more closely with police. There is also the not inconsequential matter of reimbursing the city for the cost of its investigations, which amounted to more than $4,000 in the case of one of the motels.

Such investigations are labor intensive, and that was why we criticized the original request, from City Councilman Marvin Braude’s office, to investigate all 11 of the Sepulveda Boulevard motels in his district. Police figured that only about five of the establishments were the source of the troubles, precisely the number cited.

A clear example of the type of motel that deserves such attention is the Redwood Inn, on Sepulveda in North Hills. During investigations there, a manager was arrested on pandering charges and another was caught renting rooms for an hour or two at a time, a clear violation of restrictions that had already been ordered by the city. The Planning and Land Use Committee of the Los Angeles City Council has now upheld the conditions placed on the Redwood Inn’s operations, and it added one more: a guard who will patrol the motel 16 hours a day. A couple of new managers might also be a good idea.