Letter: The newly constituted City Council should reconsider need for more hotels
Pushing the obviously more urgent ¨COVID-19¨ coverage aside for the moment: The McDonald’s drive-through restaurant at 510 (not a misprint) N. Central Ave. was, according to a June 25, 1977, article that was published in the L.A. Times, originally opened in that same year. It was owned and operated by Herbert Kurit. Years later, in 1991, that original McDonald’s was expanded — horizontally and vertically — becoming 500 N. Central Ave. in the process, with eight stories of offices above it.
In 2020, there are several close-by small businesses slated to be totally demolished instead. Among them, the competitively priced Burger King at 523 N. Central Ave. and an office building at 515-517 N. Central Ave., which has several business tenants, all for the sake of yet another hotel!
By the way, a consultant for the hotel said demolishing the Burger King drive-through would mean less traffic. Well, not quite true! Because while both the McDonald’s and the Burger King drive-through exits have “right-turn only” signs, the BK exit also has a traffic-mitigating, signalized intersection that’s much closer, at Milford Street, than the also signalized intersection for the McDonald’s, at Doran Street.
Isn’t it time for the city’s partially reconstituted City Council to reassess the demand for so many hotels?
Harvey Pearson
Los Feliz