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Greater than a month after an arson fireplace at a storage yard broken a key Los Angeles freeway, the state has employed safety guards to be careful for smoke and different bother at three extra websites beneath the ten Freeway that have been leased to the identical bankrupt businessman.
Related Press journalists visited the properties and noticed wood pallets and different hazardous and flammable materials very like what fed the Nov. 11 inferno below the freeway, which is utilized by 300,000 automobiles every day. Rats scurried beneath automobiles, vehicles and RVs in numerous states of restore and electrical wiring snaked throughout the bottom.
The state has subcontracted the safety companies because it fights to evict Ahmad Anthony Nowaid and scores of tenants subleasing by means of him in violation of his contracts with the California Division of Transportation, in response to courtroom information.
No arrests have been introduced within the arson case that pressured a one-week closure of a 2-mile stretch of a key hall for America’s provide chain and for commuters within the nation’s second-largest metropolis. Gov. Gavin Newsom mentioned the property was within the arms of “dangerous actors.”
The state leased an increasing number of land to Nowaid whilst accusations mounted in opposition to him, elevating questions concerning the authorities’s vetting course of earlier than it leases land below California’s freeways and highways.
Nowaid leased the storage yard that burned and 4 different properties from Caltrans — all however one in every of them below the ten — by means of his corporations, Apex Improvement Inc. and Metro Investments Group.
The guards from Treston Safety Providers are additionally at a receiving space the place flamable gadgets have been moved from properties leased to Nowaid and a upkeep yard the place Caltrans has arrange short-term workplaces, Caltrans mentioned.
On a December afternoon, a kind of guards carrying a neon vest sat in a folding chair exterior a gated storage yard leased to Nowait that was stacked with wood pallets.
Six tenants subletting areas below the freeway described Nowaid as a bully. They confirmed receipts of their month-to-month funds to the Related Press. Nowaid owes the state practically $223,000 for one property, in response to courtroom paperwork.
“The place did all our cash go?” mentioned Alberto Mazariegos, who shops his enterprise’s industrial laundry machines on the website the place he paid $1,100 a month in hire. “The state empowered this man. They’re accountable too.”
An individual who answered a cellphone quantity listed for Nowaid referred inquiries to an lawyer, Mainak D’Attaray. The lawyer didn’t reply to calls and emails in search of remark o n any of the allegations. D’Attaray mentioned in a press release in November that Apex was to not blame for the hearth and had made enhancements to that property, although he mentioned the corporate had not been in a position to entry the premises shortly earlier than the blaze occurred.
The Nov. 11 fireplace shortly unfold, fueled by wood pallets, provides of hand sanitizer and different flammable supplies saved there in violation of the lease contract. The inferno broken practically 100 help columns of the interstate. Sixteen individuals who have been dwelling there, together with a pregnant lady, have been safely evacuated. The Biden administration gave the state $3 million in response to the catastrophe, although Caltrans has not launched a ultimate price ticket.
Information present the state was conscious of issues on the websites leased to Nowaid, with inspectors providing blistering reviews figuring out unsafe circumstances for years.
Among the many authorized filings involving Nowaid whereas he did enterprise with the state beginning in 2008:
—A 2015 restraining order granted to a person who alleged civil harassment by Nowaid.
—A 2016 lawsuit by a recycling enterprise proprietor who mentioned she was subletting from Nowaid and was illegally locked out after he posted “two assault canines on the premises, presumably to greet anyone who would dare enter,” the courtroom submitting mentioned. The lawsuit was finally dismissed.
—A $70,000 settlement in a 2019 case in opposition to one in every of his corporations to cowl unpaid wages for development employees.
In 2017, Caltrans offered Nowaid land used for a cell house park in Ceres in Northern California. Residents there filed a lawsuit in 2022 accusing him of overcharging for hire whereas leaving the property in squalor. That go well with is ongoing.
Caltrans mentioned the company conducts reference checks earlier than leasing its properties however declined to reply different questions on Nowaid’s historical past.
Nowaid’s title is tied to a minimum of 20 corporations — together with actual property, property administration and development companies — which have registered with California’s secretary of state. Two of his companies individually filed for chapter in 2016 and 2019, in response to state courtroom information.
Following the hearth, Newsom ordered a evaluation of all 601 so-called “airspace” websites that Caltrans has leased round roadways. This system dates again to the Nineteen Sixties and many of the properties have been used for parking heaps, cellphone towers, open storage and warehouses. The heaps vary anyplace from a number of hundred to hundreds of sq. toes, and they’re concentrated in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay space.
The airspace leases have introduced in additional than $170 million over the previous 5 years.
The websites leased by Nowaid’s corporations “are outliers, and comparatively few websites current confirmed security or fireplace considerations,” Caltrans mentioned in a press release.
State inspectors paid six visits to the positioning that burned, beginning in 2020, and reported repeatedly that flammable and dangerous supplies have been being saved there.
In February 2020, inspectors famous a number of subtenants, wood pallets and washing machines. In September 2021, inspectors reported hazardous supplies, and in August 2022, in a shock go to by inspectors and the hearth marshal, they discovered solvents, oils and a homeless encampment that had returned.
“This can be a filthy unmaintained lease,” inspector Daryl Myatt wrote in a September 2022 report. “This space has been utilized for the reason that mid-Seventies and appears prefer it.”
In that very same month, Caltrans warned Nowaid that hazardous supplies have been additionally discovered at two different websites leased by him, and inspectors have been denied entry to the remaining two.
Weeks earlier than the hearth, a tenant at one of many properties mentioned Nowaid not solely locked him out of his personal enterprise but additionally confirmed up “with an individual with weapons” and that he was afraid that Nowaid would possibly kill him. The case was dismissed when the tenant failed to point out up in courtroom.
Nowaid’s tenants at one other property flagged as unsafe mentioned they put in lighting and enormous water tanks, and bought fireplace extinguishers, which Nowaid was supposed to offer. A couple of dozen individuals work there at companies starting from a mechanic’s store to a scrap steel recycling commerce.
Caltrans officers visited this summer season and informed the tenants they might be evicted as a result of Nowaid hadn’t been paying hire. The tenants mentioned they need to hire from Caltrans instantly and would adhere to the principles.
“It makes me offended,” mentioned Felix Hernandez Rubio, a mechanic who paid month-to-month for seven years. “I’ve good credit score. Some idiot shouldn’t be allowed to damage my title. That is violating my rights.”
Related Press journalists Stefanie Dazio in Los Angeles and Sophie Austin in Sacramento contributed to this report.
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