Anti-Crime Activists’ Target Files Countersuit

Betsy Bredau, a community activist whose Safe Streets Now! organization uses lawsuits as a weapon to clean up neighborhoods, has been sued by one of her group’s targets.

A Long Beach hotel owner alleges that most of his tenants moved out after Bredau and her watchdog group sent threatening letters, denounced the property in news conferences and encouraged neighbors to file lawsuits.

Vanmalibhai Galal, owner of the Arcade Hotel at 1097 Long Beach Blvd., is seeking unspecified damages for lost business and an injunction barring Bredau or her nonprofit group from pursuing further action against the hotel, according to a lawsuit filed Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

“Her actions have seriously affected his business and jeopardized his reputation in the community,” said Frank Weiser, Galal’s attorney.

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Bredau said a lawsuit was not unexpected in light of her organization’s confrontational strategy. “This is pretty common for anyone who’s an activist,” she said. “You have to take those kinds of things and you have to be able to deal with it.”

Safe Streets Now!, which started in Oakland five years ago, tries to help neighborhoods root out drug dealers and troublemakers by taking owners of problem properties to Small Claims Court. Bredau started Long Beach program in August and recently received a $20,000 city grant.

The Arcade Hotel, which Long Beach officials describe as one of the city’s most troubled, has been the most recent target. Police have been called to the site about 200 times in the last two years, and the Police Department has sent letters to Galal condemning an ongoing drug problem at the hotel, said Sharon Diggs-Jackson, drug abatement coordinator with the department.

Bredau described her organization’s strategy to the hotel’s neighbors during a January workshop. Neighbors have kept logs of alleged criminal activity in or near the hotel. A summary of these logs was included in a Feb. 24 letter to Galal warning the 15-year owner of the hotel that he faced legal action unless the alleged crimes ceased.

Bredau held a news conference recently in a parking lot near the hotel, and denounced Galal’s management of the property.

The campaign came to a head Tuesday, when Galal appeared in Small Claims Court in Long Beach to defend himself in separate suits filed by 14 neighbors, who are seeking $5,000 each from Galal for mental and emotional distress that they say they have suffered while living near the hotel. They describe the hotel as a haven for criminal activity, including drug sales and prostitution.

A decision on the suits is expected within 30 days.

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Galal’s son, Mahesh, who manages the hotel, said the allegations are unfounded. “This is a high-crime area,” he said. “There are problems in adjacent buildings, but not in ours. We don’t allow anything like that on our property. Why are they coming after us?”

Mahesh Galal said eight of the hotel’s 10 tenants have moved out since the neighborhood campaign began.

Galal’s attorney, Weiser, also disputed city allegations about the property. “If, in fact, the city had all these complaints, why hasn’t the city instituted an action all this time?” he asked.

“If there’s a legitimate allegation against my client, there are direct remedies under health, safety and penal codes. We’ve got an organization that’s putting the cart before the horse.”