Center Appeals Anti-Cruising Restrictions

The owner of La Rinda Plaza, a shopping center that is shared by San Fernando and Los Angeles, is appealing restrictions on its hours, along with other conditions being imposed by Los Angeles to combat cruisers in the neighborhood.

Meanwhile, Payless Foods Warehouse--on the San Fernando side of the plaza--is trying to stop that city from restricting its hours too.

“We’re saying it would be devastating to us,” said Paul Charon, Payless general manager, who spoke at Tuesday’s San Fernando City Council meeting.

The council is considering the possibility of closing Payless and other San Fernando businesses in the La Rinda Plaza at 9:30 p.m. instead of 11 p.m.

According to neighbors, the days of hundreds of teen-agers cruising the neighborhood, causing trouble, drawing gang violence and crime, have practically disappeared since July when the plaza started following most of the new measures agreed to after a hearing before a Los Angeles city zoning administrator. The entrances to the center’s parking lot are blocked off at night to discourage cruisers.

Neighbors said that for the first time in a long time, couples can feel free to walk to the store at night.

“We’ve had some sleep after three years of not having any sleep,” said Lenor Ramirez of Mission Hills, who lives near the shopping center. “We would like the same conditions applied on the San Fernando side as on the Los Angeles city side.”

She would allow one exception, permitting Payless to stay open until 11 every night.

“They do a great public service by being there,” said Ramirez’s sister, Hilda. The sisters were two community leaders who fought for the conditions to be imposed by Los Angeles. “They aren’t harming anyone. They should stay open.”

At the San Fernando City Council meeting Tuesday, Charon suggested that perhaps they could use landscaping and removable barriers to separate the Payless lot from the rest of the plaza at night and further discourage cruisers from gathering there.

But rather than impose their own conditions, the San Fernando City Council has put the issue on hold until a hearing Oct. 17. Then they will know what resulted from an Oct. 4 hearing on the plaza before the Los Angeles City Board of Zoning Appeals.

La Rinda Plaza filed its appeal last month asking Los Angeles to allow businesses to stay open past 9:30 p.m., reconsider the demand for three armed security guards to work overnight on weekends and remove public telephones from the plaza.

“That may be the best way anyway,” said Associate Zoning Administrator William E. Lillenberg, who ordered the new restrictions. “They said they are going to appeal certain conditions they are uncomfortable with, to keep their options open.”

San Fernando officials said they wanted to be sure the two cities imposed similar conditions on the plaza. “I think we owe it to L.A. to complement their actions,” said City Councilman Raul Godinez II.

The City Council voted to write to the Los Angeles Board of Zoning Appeals saying they support the conditions imposed on La Rinda Plaza.

Stephen Chan, managing director for the company that runs the plaza, said that most businesses on the Los Angeles side close by 9:30 p.m. and that the main reason for appealing the hours is so that the Los Angeles action will not prompt San Fernando to impose early closing on businesses there. Not only does the Payless stay open later, but a Mexican restaurant and a liquor store there are open until midnight.

“We really don’t have the right to impose any hours on our tenants,” said Chan, who argues that businesses that are open later help to discourage cruisers. They oppose the requirement for armed guards because they do not want to be responsible for breaking up cruiser gatherings.

“We feel that is the responsibility of the LAPD,” Chan said, adding, “We are not the Brinks company.”

Lillenberg said it appeared to him the plaza was making a “good faith effort” to work with Los Angeles.