City Files Criminal Charges Against MacArthur Park Building Owners

Criminal charges were filed this week against the landlords of 11 MacArthur Park-area apartment buildings that city officials say are plagued with cockroach infestations, leaky plumbing and defective heating and fire-safety systems.

“These residents are hardworking people who shouldn’t come home to cockroaches and leaking faucets,” Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo said outside the Stuart Hotel, one of the properties deemed to be in violation of fire, housing and health standards.

Fire and housing officials also found rodent infestations, defective fire extinguishers, blocked exit doors, damaged windows and exposed wires, Delgadillo said.

The 11 buildings are owned by 21 landlords; if convicted, each faces penalties including fines and up to six months of jail time on each count.

The buildings, which cater mainly to low-income and transient residents, include 330 units in complexes that range from a duplex on Colton Street to the Stuart Hotel, a four-story, 30-unit apartment building on Union Avenue. The brick building has windows without screens and missing glass panels. Residents said rats scuttle between walls and the pipes leak.

“My apartment is deplorable,” said Robert Lee, who moved to the hotel four days ago and pays $155 a week for a studio. “There is water leaking from the ceiling, but I don’t have money to live anywhere else.”

Balubhai Patel and his wife, Sadaben, who own the Stuart Hotel, face 83 counts for violations there and at two other properties.

Each charge carries a maximum of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine, Delgadillo said.

“We give them a chance to fix it and if they fix it, great,” Delgadillo said. “But in this case they didn’t, so they’re being charged.”

Balubhai Patel said that he had never received any citations and that he was unaware of the charges. He denied anything is wrong with his buildings.

“I go there every week and I don’t see anything wrong,” Balubhai Patel, 58, said. “I don’t know what they are talking about. Maybe the inspector went to the wrong building.”

Delgadillo’s office produced copies of violation notices sent to the Patels at two different addresses.

When asked about the missing window screens Patel said, “You tell them not to take it out and they tell me they need the air, what can you do?”

Delgadillo said the charges against owners of the rundown buildings in the MacArthur Park area, a working-class neighborhood just west of downtown, is part of a concerted effort to improve housing conditions all over the city.

“We decided to have a focus area and send a message,” he said. “This is the beginning, but there will be more.”

In a separate action last week, as a result of charges by Delgadillo’s office, a judge ordered Dr. Sondra O’Neale, owner of a 135-unit apartment building across the street from the Stuart Hotel, to spend 90 days of house arrest at her complex.

O’Neale was sentenced after she failed to fix fire alarms, smoke detectors, fire escapes and fire doors, among other things, Delgadillo said.

O’Neale could not be reached for comment.

At O’Neale’s building there are locked fire escapes, holes in the walls and a stench of urine in the hallways.

“I have no money to move out,” said Janissa Estonacato, who shares a tiny studio apartment with her sister.

“I have no other choice but to live here.”