Health And Safety Violations

Homeowners in Buena Park will now have a chance to make improvements to single-family homes with the assistance of low-interest loans available through the city. Just over 100 of the one-time-only loans for up to $20,000 each are available to qualified homeowners in the city on a first-come, first-served basis. And up to $30,000 is available to those residents hoping to build room additions to relieve overcrowding in their homes.

State regulators took the highly unusual step Wednesday of suspending operations at a Vernon battery recycler that has discharged harmful quantities of lead for years and more recently has been deemed to pose a danger to as many as 110,000 people because of arsenic emissions. The state Department of Toxic Substances Control said its order came after officials learned this spring that Exide Technologies, one of the largest car battery recyclers in the world, had been continuously releasing hazardous waste into the soil beneath its plant because of a degraded pipeline.

In a case that highlights a "gray area" of city regulations, a Los Angeles landlord was ordered Wednesday to restore utilities and stop eviction proceedings against tenants in a building that he is renovating pending a further court hearing. Superior Court Judge Ricardo A. Torres issued a temporary restraining order against Daniel Lerner of DL Investments, owner of an apartment building at 706 S. Normandie Ave.

A high-end psychiatric hospital in Pasadena where four patients died and one was raped in recent years is facing renewed scrutiny after inspectors learned of several recent escapes and near suicides. Aurora Las Encinas Hospital has been notified that it risks losing federal financial support after the latest incidents, one of which involved a woman known to be suicidal who was able to remove a battery from a TV remote-control device and swallow it. Several days after that, she broke a mirror and swallowed glass.

A high-end psychiatric hospital in Pasadena where four patients died and one was raped in recent years is facing renewed scrutiny after inspectors learned of several recent escapes and near suicides. Aurora Las Encinas Hospital has been notified that it risks losing federal financial support after the latest incidents, one of which involved a woman known to be suicidal who was able to remove a battery from a TV remote-control device and swallow it. Several days after that, she broke a mirror and swallowed glass.

The Red Onion restaurant chain, which two years ago paid the steepest civil fines ever levied in Orange County for health and safety code violations, agreed Friday to a new record payment of $380,654 for repetition of most of the old violations at its four restaurants in the county.

"Will it be better for us if we go someplace else?" asked the 14-year-old girl with wide brown eyes, who giggled at the cockroaches scurrying at the doorway of a neighboring apartment. It was a brave question for Norma Garcia, a student at Toll Junior High, who lives with her family of eight and about 100 others--mostly poor Latinos--in a dilapidated apartment complex in an industrial section of Glendale. But it was also a question no one can answer.

Fresno County health officials shut down an illegal farm labor camp south of Fresno after finding numerous health and safety violations, including bare electrical wires, unvented gas appliances and an open sewer. Officials said at least 32 people were displaced by the closure, but all were informed of alternate housing that was available.

UPS Leads Contractors in Penalties: Almost a fifth of federal contract dollars awarded in 1994 went to firms that had been cited for workplace health and safety violations, a General Accounting Office report says. United Parcel Service led the group with 24 penalties, most for failing to improve emergency response to hazards created when packages are damaged. The 261 companies significantly penalized for such violations received contracts totaling $38 billion.

The Community Redevelopment Agency approved a $1.1-million loan Thursday to help a nonprofit agency buy a dilapidated Skid Row hotel and develop a low-income housing complex at the site. The loan, which must be approved by the City Council, would permit the Skid Row Housing Trust to purchase the Olympia Hotel, demolish the blighted three-story building and design a 48-unit housing complex.

If San Luis Obispo County rancher Dan De Vaul was daring the courts to take action against him after a jury convicted him on two counts of illegally housing homeless addicts, he got his response Monday. Superior Court Judge John Trice ordered the 66-year-operator of Sunny Acres, a self-styled rehab program for some of the Central Coast's toughest cases, to serve 90 days in jail. He was also fined $1,000. Trice said he had little choice because De Vaul has repeatedly refused to bring the living arrangements at his ranch up to code despite the offers of county officials to help him. On Monday, he even refused an offer of probation.

Rosa Frias was working the evening shift at Bimbo Bakeries in South San Francisco when she reached into her bread-making machine to remove a hunk of dried dough. She screamed as her left hand, and then her lower arm, were sucked into the gears of the Winkler stringline proofer. That night, the limb had to be amputated above the elbow. The incident drew a $21,750 fine from the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health. But Bimbo paid nothing. It appealed to the Cal-OSHA Appeals Board, which dismissed the case on a technicality: The inspector had retired and Cal-OSHA could not prove that he had had permission to enter the factory.

Six Southern California hospitals have been fined $25,000 each in administrative penalties for serious violations that, in some cases, led to death or serious injury, according to state Department of Public Health officials. Children's Hospital of Orange County was fined because its nursing staff failed to ensure appropriate drainage after a child's neurological procedure in November, an oversight that led to severe brain injury. Dr. Maria Minon, the hospital's chief medical officer, said the hospital "very much" regrets the incident and has adjusted protocols for patient care, increased staff training and added layers of checks and balances to minimize the chance of it occurring again.

Vowing "never to stop pushing" for condom use in porn, AIDS Healthcare Foundation officials said Wednesday that they plan to file complaints today with state officials against 16 California-based production companies they say have violated workplace safety laws. The complaints will mark the latest move by the Los Angeles-based advocacy group to pressure the porn industry and government regulators to do more to safeguard the health of adult-film performers. The foundation sued Los Angeles County last month alleging that public health officials had failed to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and to enforce laws requiring employers to protect workers against exposure to bodily fluids.

Former employees of Aurora Las Encinas Hospital, a private psychiatric facility in Pasadena, filed a class-action lawsuit Thursday against the owner alleging that chronic understaffing has compromised patient care. The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on behalf of four former employees, says understaffing forced Las Encinas staff to work past the ends of their shifts, with no overtime pay, to complete work obligations.

Portraying law enforcers as lawbreakers, the state toxic substances enforcement agency has found that the Redondo Beach Police Department violated state codes after at least 800 hazardous lead bullet fragments from its outdoor firing range were found in the surrounding neighborhood, including an elementary school across the street. The Department of Toxic Substances Control report, dated Oct.

A sweeping inspection of Metro Rail subway construction conditions found 131 alleged health and safety violations that together carry fines of more than $250,000, according to a final report Tuesday released by Cal/OSHA. In a joint weeklong audit by state and federal occupational safety agencies last month, inspectors reported inadequate shoring around trenches and numerous electrical hazards.

The death of a temporary employee who was crushed in a stampede of post-Thanksgiving shoppers at a Wal-Mart store could have been prevented, federal officials said Tuesday as they proposed fining the world's largest retailer $7,000 -- as much as it makes in about 18 seconds. The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced it was citing Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for inadequate crowd management after the Nov. 28 death of Jdimytai Damour at a Long Island store.

Food safety inspectors say managers of a Central California plant at the center of a salmonella scare knew some of its pistachios were tainted but continued shipping nuts for six more months. The Food and Drug Administration issued a sweeping national warning in March for consumers to avoid eating pistachios after concerns surfaced about nuts from Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella Inc.