Tenants Rights

A lengthy and bitter dispute between low-income tenants and the property owners redeveloping their complex accelerated Thursday when the American Civil Liberties Union agreed to help defend hundreds of families at Lincoln Place Apartments. ACLU staff attorney Dan Tokaji on Thursday accused the Los Angeles Lincoln Place Investors of trying to chill tenants' rights to free speech with a Sept. 20 lawsuit.

Smokers in West Hollywood--already banned from workplaces, restaurants and bars--now face a proposed city law that could limit their ability to rent apartments and houses. A city councilman this week introduced one of the nation's first municipal ordinances that would, if passed, fully empower landlords to designate apartments, hallways and other common areas as smoke-free and allow only nonsmokers as tenants and guests.

The federal agency charged with putting low-income people into decent, affordable housing is itself trying to evict dozens of poor and elderly Los Angeles residents from homes they have rented for years but which are now in foreclosure.

Landlords who tell tenants that no pets are allowed could be headed for a legal cat fight. City Council members this week enacted a law that gives senior citizens, disabled people and AIDS patients the right to keep up to two pets in their apartments or townhouses--regardless of their building's policies and restrictions. Officials said their ordinance is the first of its kind.

The recently enacted Los Angeles Systematic Code Enforcement program does more to systematically erode the protections of the Bill of Rights than it does to protect the rights of millions of renters. This plan proposes to "inspect" (for code violations) the inside of every rental apartment within the city of Los Angeles, irrespective of the tenant's desire, or lack thereof, for such inspection. Renters are not asked whether they want an inspection, but are instead ordered to admit the inspector.

A negotiator for tenants at Haster Gardens fired off an angry letter to the mayor of Garden Grove on Wednesday, demanding that he take steps to prevent any cutoffs of utilities in the complex and publicly reveal his plans to help tenants relocate. "This is a letter I should have sent weeks ago, but I was waiting for him [the mayor] to do the right thing," said Tom Simon, who represents the tenants in a feud with their landlord.

City Atty. James Hahn and civil rights groups announced Monday that they will ask a federal appeals court in San Francisco to reverse a recent decision that may allow landlords to discriminate against gays, unmarried couples, and people with AIDS. A sharply divided three-judge panel ruled in an Alaska case this month that a landlord can refuse to rent to an unmarried couple if it violates strongly held religious views.

A federal appeals court ruling upholding the religious rights of two Alaska landlords has sent a shock wave through legal circles in California, where antidiscrimination laws believed to be settled are now in doubt. The ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the landlords were within their rights when they refused to rent to an unmarried couple because doing so violated their interpretation of Christianity.

A federal appeals court ruling upholding the religious rights of two Alaska landlords has sent a shock wave through legal circles in California, where antidiscrimination laws believed to be settled are now in doubt. The ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the landlords were within their rights when they refused to rent to an unmarried couple because doing so violated their interpretation of Christianity.

The Federal Communications Commission gave renters permission Friday to install small satellite dishes or other TV antennas on balconies, patios or gardens that aren't shared with other tenants. The rule, which the agency said will supersede any existing restriction on the devices in lease agreements, should take effect in about two months. The action applies to rental properties such as apartments and single-family homes, but it won't affect "common areas," such as apartment lobbies or roofs.