Santa Ana poised to take action against businesses labeled ‘drug dens’
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A gateway to downtown Santa Ana, East 1st Street has also been a corridor where open drug use and other criminal activities have become commonplace over the years.
Weary of what the city has called a “staggering” number of police calls for service at Royal Grand Inn, Royal Roman Motel and El Tapatio Restaurant, Santa Ana is ready to take legal action against the trio of East 1st Street businesses they have described as “drug dens.”
On Tuesday, the Santa Ana City Council voted unanimously to allow City Atty. Sonia Carvalho to file a lawsuit against the businesses and seek a court order to board up and shut them down for up to one year.
“These legal actions are necessary,” said Councilwoman Jessie Lopez.
“I sincerely hope that the property owners can work with the city to resolve these issues, to become better neighbors to families in the area.”
A staff report listed Kyong Su Kim and Myong Kim as owners of all three properties. City records noted Maria Melendez as the owner of the Mariscos El Tapatio y Antojitos restaurant.
Over the past three years, the pair of motels across the street from each other and the restaurant along East 1st Street have been the subject of more than 1,400 calls for service to the Santa Ana Police Department.
Felony and misdemeanor criminal activity committed in and around the businesses read like a laundry list of drug-related offenses, including methamphetamine possession.
Councilman David Peñaloza said that if he could have single-handedly given Carvalho the power to file a lawsuit, he would have done so five years ago.
“I hope that this sends a message, loud and clear, to every business [or absentee landlord] across this city, that if you allow… blight, drug dens and crimes to exist inside your property and ignore it… we will go down this route,” he said. “It is a shame that our residents have to deal with this nonsense day after day.”
Santa Ana red-tagged five motel rooms at the Royal Roman in 2024 for fire and water damage. To date, many of the units remain red-tagged.
The city also issued more than $2,000 total in administrative fines against the Royal Grand Inn for code violations.
More recently, the California Labor Commissioner’s Office and the Employment Development Department inspected El Tapatio and found that it was operating without worker’s compensation insurance and a payroll system.
The agencies cited the owner for $69,000 and ordered the shut down of business operations until in full compliance with labor law.
“We don’t want promises for 30 days,” Carvalho said in wanting a civil complaint against the businesses in hand. “We will use that authority to seek compliance first. Compliance is always our first step.”
If the city proceeds with a lawsuit, it could ask a judge to issue $25,000 civil penalties against each business. Santa Ana would also look to have the properties fall under an appointed receiver and possibly be sold to a new owner.
Mayor Valerie Amezcua mentioned how she has regularly called Santa Ana PD’s watch commander about seeing people naked, doing drugs and sleeping on the corridor.
“First Street has always been a disaster,” she said.
“We can sit up here and say it’s been years and years in the making. This has been a problem for a very long time. Things did not start happening until recently.”
Amezcua claimed that the proactive approach to 1st Street represented a swing of the political pendulum in Santa Ana. In recent years, a split between progressive and moderate Democrats in their approach to public safety issues has defined the council’s political dynamics.
“First Street is just the beginning of where we are going,” Amezcua promised. “It is time. We are done.”
In the end, all seven council members, regardless of their political leanings, voted to give Carvalho the power to take legal action against the businesses, if need be.
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