Owner Denies Charges in Slumlord Case

As a restaurateur, he earned a reputation for presenting the best in fine dining, featuring crystal stemware and white-gloved waiters. Now, as an apartment building owner, Ben Dimsdale is accused of running one of the worst slums in Los Angeles.

An attorney entered a plea of not guilty Thursday on behalf of Dimsdale, the owner of the former Windsor restaurant, a mid-Wilshire landmark for 40 years before closing in 1990. Dimsdale, 90, did not appear in Los Angeles Superior Court, where he is accused of violating 41 fire, building and health and safety codes.

The building in the 600 block of South Rampart Boulevard is a breeding ground for rodents, cockroaches, fleas and bedbugs, according to city reports. Electrical wiring was dangerously exposed throughout the building, and plumbing was defective. Many units lacked heating, while staircases and fire doors were ruled unsafe, inspection records showed.

The city attorney’s office filed criminal charges against Dimsdale in May. Dimsdale’s attorney, John Conkle, also entered pleas of not guilty on behalf of Dimsdale’s wife, Veronica, and apartment manager Vihange Amirkani, who are charged as co-defendants.

If convicted on all 41 counts, the three face more than $40,000 in fines and up to six months in County Jail, said Deputy City Atty. Lawrence Punter.

Problems at the building had become so severe that the City Council voted in April to admit the property into the Rent Escrow Account Program, which withholds rent payments from landowners who fail to comply with building and safety codes. Tenants are now paying only half their rent until the building is brought into compliance, officials said.

Dimsdale said he was a reluctant owner of the building, which was turned over to him in 1989 after a construction company to which he lent $150,000 could not pay him back.

“It wasn’t our type of place,” said the former restaurateur, who said his motto at the Windsor used to be, “Buy the best, forget the rest.”

Since the violations were reported last year, Dimsdale said, he has spent more than $40,000 on improvements. The apartment owner said he has poured at least $150,000 into repairs since he acquired the building in 1989.

“The city doesn’t think we did it fast enough,” Dimsdale said during a recent interview. “I can’t see how they don’t have some respect for what I’ve done in the city. . . . I feel like I’m [being labeled] a slum landlord, which I’m not.”

Dimsdale’s restaurant earned numerous commendations from restaurant associations, magazines and city officials.

Several framed certificates with gold city seals decorate his office in the Windsor apartment building, which formerly housed the restaurant on the ground floor. The Dimsdales own and live in the building at West 7th and Catalina streets.

Ten blocks away, Dimsdale’s tenants pay $350 to $450 for studio and one-bedroom apartments, and say they must coexist with rats and cockroaches, leaks, gaping holes in their walls and--up until last week--sporadic electricity.

Blanca Cahui, who lives with her sister and four children in a one-bedroom apartment, complained about the worn carpeting and an oven and broiler that have not worked in two years.

“The city said, ‘Change the stove, floor and carpet,’ but the manager does not change anything,” Cahui said.

As Amparo Ramirez, a four-year resident of the apartment building, described the rats she contends with day and night, the ceiling leaked and a roach crawled up her kitchen wall. “This building has too many problems,” she said. She said the money she makes from her part-time cleaning work at UCLA “is not enough for moving.”

Veronica Dimsdale attributed part of the apartments’ problems to transient tenants who do not take care of the place, and overcrowding.

“He did the best he could short of redoing the whole building,” she said of her husband.

Punter, however, countered that “the question really isn’t whether the landlord is spending some money or making some repairs. The question is, ‘What are the tenants’ rights?’ ”

Dimsdale and his co-defendants face their next court hearing Aug. 31.