Careful What You Ask For

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Sometimes you see good illustrations of why you shouldn’t fuss too loud unless all your cards are in order. Case in point: the Ford Hotel at 1000 E. 7th St (midway between San Pedro and Central). In April a zoning administrator ruled that the hotel needed to maintain some conditions that had previously been put on its operation. One of those was that two armed security guards be on duty. The hotel’s operator appealed, and the matter went to City Council’s Planning & Land Use Committee.

A week or so ago that committee made their recommendation, and now the matter goes to Council, appearing on the agenda for 12th. What did they say?

RESOLVE TO DENY APPEAL filed by Kumar Koneru (Harold Greenberg, Representative), from the determination of the Zoning Administrator in modifying previously imposed conditions on the operation of a hotel in order to mitigate adverse impacts on the surrounding community, subject to conditions of approval, and further modify Condition No. 6 to require a minimum of three armed State registered security guards at the site, as recommended by the Committee for the use known as the Ford Hotel at 1000 East Seventh Street.

So they appealed having to have two guards, and now they get to have three.

The Ford’s had a very troubled history; in 1997 the owner was sentenced to 90 days in jail for failing to repair broken windows and get rid of a roach infestation. In 1999 a mother threw her 9-month old baby out a window and then jumped out herself. The building was also the focus of an LA Times article from September of last year looking at the problems faced by children living on Skid Row.