Hotel Evacuated After Drug Lab Is Discovered

Police evacuated dozens of guests and employees from a La Palma hotel Tuesday morning after the discovery of a drug laboratory in one of the rooms on the top floor.

The manager of the La Quinta Inn received an anonymous tip about the lab Tuesday morning and called police. Officers and firefighters entered the 7th-floor room to find an ether-like odor and a yellow haze filling the room. They also found cooking equipment and chemicals used for the production of the drug methamphetamine.

Police quickly evacuated about 100 guests and alerted the bomb squad because drug labs are sometimes booby-trapped to fend off outsiders. The chemicals involved also pose a high risk of explosion, Lt. Mark Yokoyama said. No injuries were reported.

Police later said they were stunned by the 10 a.m. discovery.

“We’ve seen nothing of this magnitude in La Palma before,” said Yokoyama, adding that most methamphetamine raids within the city involve small home laboratories. “Usually, we see more of the stove-type of operations.”

Police believe the suspects moved into the room Sunday night but revealed little more about their investigation, except to say that they were reviewing the hotel’s security camera tapes in an effort to identify the lab operators.