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When Good Times Go Too Far L.A. plans to crack down on serial party houses with fines and public notices By Gary Walker Soon even the neighbors who weren’t around to call the cops at 2 a.m. will know exactly where the party was — and that it probably won’t happen again. Next month the Los Angeles City Council will consider upping the ante of a municipal ordinance prohibiting “loud or unruly gatherings,” increasing homeowner fines when police are called to break up a party and placing warning signs in front of problem properties for at least a month after they’re busted — a scarlet “P,” metaphorically speaking, that enumerates the types of conduct observed by law enforcement. Under a current draft of the ordinance update wending its way through committee, fines would start as low as $100 for the first offense but escalate to as high as $8,000 per violation if there’s a track record. “It’s a small handful that make this ordinance so sorely needed. We are talking about people who use their homes to throw all-night events, or rent them out to strangers who run de facto nightclubs out of otherwise quiet neighborhoods — threatening the peace and safety of
everyone around them,” reads a statement by Los Angeles City Councilman David Ryu. Ryu’s council district includes parts of the San Fernando Valley, Beverly Hills, and the Hollywood Hills, where loud
calls about parties raging out of control in Westchester. “Our crime analysis personnel say there has been very, very little activity for house parties near LMU. We will keep an eye on this should the situation change in
Homeowners in Venice, Mar Vista and Playa del Rey have complained about noisy partying at some short-term rental properties, often the same houses over and over again. late-night ragers have made headlines reminiscent of a midnight Kardashian fireworks show. Historically one of the first local neighborhoods to look for a serial party house would be the off-campus housing near Loyola Marymount University — but not so much anymore, according to local law enforcement. LAPD Capt. James Setzer said Pacific Division has seen a drastic decrease in
the coming months,” Setzer said. LMU Public Safety Chief Hampton Cantrell said the reduction in calls to quell loud parties is in part due to several years of collaboration with stakeholders both on and off campus. “Over the last five or six years, we’ve worked very closely with LAPD and our city prosecutors as well as with the administration and our students on how they can still have parties but in a respon-
sible manner,” Cantrell said. “We’ve been able to design strategies around some of the houses where students were having a lot of parties, and I think we’ve had some success.” Those strategies include deploying campus public safety officers and discussing off-campus conduct with students — and, in some cases, their landlords. “When I heard about the ordinance and the increased penalties, I thought this seems like a good tool for the toughest cases,” Cantrell said. In 2018, tourists appear more likely than students to get neighbors riled up. Homeowners in Venice, Mar Vista and Playa del Rey have complained about noisy partying at some short-term rental properties, often the same houses over and over again. Jan Haagen, who owns a home in the beachfront Playa del Rey neighborhood known as The Jungle, said she and other neighbors who’ve been critical of shortterm vacation rentals would be in “full favor” of increased penalties for properties where partygoers disturb the peace, even (Continued on page 7)
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PAGE 6 THE ARGONAUT February 15, 2018