FAIRFAX : Riot-Damaged Building to Be Razed

The burned-out remnants of building that housed an Indian restaurant and apartments on Pico Boulevard, damaged in the 1992 riots, will be demolished this week.

Kamran Abselet, owner of the property at West Pico Boulevard and Hayworth Avenue, hired a contractor to raze the two-story building a few days after the city notified him of its intention to demolish the building unless he did so himself.

Had Abselet ignored the notice, a city official said, a lien would have been placed on his property to cover the cost of the demolition.

The site was a nuisance to residents, who complained that it attracted transients, drug dealers and prostitutes.

“Property values have depreciated more than usual,” said Helen Miles, owner of Carthay Studios, a studio rental facility across the street from the building. She added that she lost business because people were afraid they would be accosted. Of the blight that followed the fires, Miles said, “It was disgusting. . . . We would clean it out, and the transients would move in again.”

Community activists, led by Joe Connolly, a member of the Carthay Square neighborhood association, carried out a telephone campaign, calling Mayor Richard Riordan’s office and the city’s Department of Building and Safety. “We had six people calling almost every day,” said Connolly, who also painted messages to Riordan on a wooden barrier that surrounds the building.

Joe Hughes, an inspector with the city’s Department of Building and Safety, said the city urged Abselet to tear down the structure voluntarily but then took a harder line.

“When he finally saw (the problem) wasn’t going away, and that we were going to take drastic action, he decided to do the demolition himself,” Hughes said.

Abselet said he has no immediate plans for the property.

Hughes warned that the building’s demolition will not necessarily spell relief for neighbors.

“Will it be just an empty lot, or something worse, like tent cities?” Hughes said. “It’ll be interesting to see what happens.”