Checkout Time on the Figueroa Strip

The Ash and Furst motels are in the heart of the Figueroa strip, a section of south Los Angeles cluttered with prostitutes and drug dealers.

None of this would be permitted on the Westside or in Encino. A few years ago, a Westside neighborhood went crazy when residents heard there was going to be a bar in a new hotel. The hotel owner finally got his bar, but he had to make major concessions.

This is called political clout. The Latino and African American homeowners who live on each side of the Figueroa strip don’t have such power. And, unfortunately for them, the strip has a quality essential to anyone doing business in sex and drugs--location.

Running for several miles south of the Coliseum, it is not only convenient for people in the neighborhood, but it also is just a short, straight shot down Figueroa Street for more affluent drug and sex addicts who sneak over from downtown high-rises. Rooms rent, police say, for $10 an hour.

Councilwoman Rita Walters and the Los Angeles Police Department have been unsuccessfully trying to clean up the strip for years. They’ve singled out the Ash and Furst, and this week are asking the City Council to impose strict conditions on their operations. For instance, you would need to show identification to check in, and a video camera would record you during the transaction.

The owner, Maoson Young, who came here as an immigrant from Taiwan, moved into the Ash with his family 30 years ago to run the place and now owns more than 50 such downscale motels. He has hired one of L.A.’s best-known lobbyists, former City Councilman Arthur K. Snyder, to fight the restrictions. Snyder, 62, is recovering from an illness and the need to defend himself against prosecution for campaign contribution violations. Still, he is waging a persistent battle on behalf of his client.

In selecting Snyder, Young hired one of City Hall’s best spin doctors--a man who could make a strip mall sound like a national monument.

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Last Friday afternoon, I drove down to get a look at the motels.

A young woman in a short, purple sequined dress walked out of the Ash and headed south on Figueroa. Aside from that, both places were quiet.

The front desks at both consisted of barred windows opening on the courtyard. At the side of each window were signs proclaiming “Absolutely No Prostitution” and “All Transactions Filmed and Preserved at Another Site.” Copies of state laws against prostitution were also posted.

Like all the motels on the Figueroa strip, the Ash and Furst are old. Cal and Stanford fans of half a century ago probably stayed there when they came south for the USC game at the Coliseum. Despite their age, however, both motels looked well-maintained.

Don’t be fooled, say opponents of the motels. With the city after him, owner Young has done a quick fix-up, they say.

The real situation, they say, is found in a summary of neighbors’ complaints prepared by city zoning official John J. Parker Jr., who recommended the restrictions. He wrote:

“There is an unsavory atmosphere at these motels. Any time of the day, you can see prostitutes peddling their wares. Used condoms can be found on nearby lawns.”

The Rev. Vincent Hawkins of the Figueroa Church of Christ, near the Furst Motel, told a City Council committee recently that “there is little or no respect for the sanctity of our religious activities.” He complained of “verbal abuse and jeering at those who seek to attend our religious services . . . public urination, sexually suggestive behavior, indecent proposals and vandalism.”

Saturday, I talked to attorney Snyder, who took a much different view of the two motels owned by his client.

“The hourly rentals,” he said, “are for consensual, noncommercial sex. There is one man in his 70s and his wife in her 60s who live in a crowded apartment. They come there once a week and spend an hour.”

Snyder said Young has “been the single outspoken [motel industry] leader in trying to get the owners not to rent to prostitutes. He has said prostitutes provide 15% of the business but 90% of the trouble.”

Moreover, said Snyder, the police and other city officials appear to be targeting Chinese American owners. “There are 38 motels on the strip between Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Imperial Highway, and six of them have Chinese owners,” Snyder said. “There were six citations issued to shut them [motels] down. Five were Chinese-owned. The other was owned by an East Indian. No white, no black, no Hispanic, although there are plenty of those on the strip.”

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Even though spin doctor Snyder makes the sleazy motels sound like respectable retreats for rekindling that marital spark, anyone walking through the blocks of neighborhoods adjacent to the motels would agree restrictions should be placed on all of them.

This is a center of working-class L.A. with block after block of single-family homes, many recently purchased by hard-working Latino immigrants moving up the economic ladder. Alongside them are African American families, some of whom settled there years ago.

Many schools are nearby. The area is filled with kids. Maybe their parents don’t have powerful political connections, but these students shouldn’t have to weave their way through prostitutes and drug dealers.