Gillian Morán Pérez
is an associate producer for LAist’s early All Things Considered show.
Published August 3, 2023 3:45 PM
The Pacific Theatres in Chatsworth, which closed down during the pandemic and never reopened.
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Pacific Theaters in Chatsworth was the place to be for west side San Fernando Valley teens like me. And, I have to admit, I'm pretty sad that the shuttered theater is turning into a Tesla delivery service center.
The backstory: The theater had been around since 1998, and it was the place where my brother and I had our childhood, blossomed into our teen years and continued to visit during our early college years. Then came the pandemic.
What's next: Now, documents from Los Angeles City Planning Department show that there’s plans to turn this place, the pinnacle of my youth, into a new car delivery and service center. It’s not yet clear when construction will take place.
In a pre-pandemic world, the Pacific Theatres in Chatsworth was a magnet for west San Fernando Valley residents. It’s been around since 1998, and it was the place where my brother and I spent our childhood, blossomed into our teen years and continued to relish into our college years.
Even though this theater is located in the city of Chatsworth, we always called it the Winnetka theater, because of the street it was on. It was also easier to distinguish since just a mile away, the Northridge Fashion Center had their own Pacific Theatres tucked in a corner.
The hulking multiplex sat like a king in the center of the plaza, overseeing a kingdom of surrounding businesses.
To the right of the entrance, coffee shops, frozen yogurt shops, boba stores, and other novelties rotated in and out, competing with the buttery popcorn and ICEEs from the concession stand.
To the left of the theater's entrance, the sounds of bells heralding jackpots or cars zipping around race courses poured out from the vast arcade. Years later it was replaced with Orangetheory Fitness, replacing the arcade sounds with the sweaty wafts of gym goers.
Underneath the Pacific Theatres sign, rows of lights would guide you in. It resembled the set of the '80's sitcom Saved By The Bell — neon zig zags on maroon carpet and geometric shapes on the walls alongside movie posters.
Friday nights were for tweens, teens and young adults catching the latest movies. My brother and his crew watched all the Fast & Furious movies from 2006 to 2017. He and I went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 opening weekend in 2011.
The inside of Pacific Theatres.
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Weekends were for families, followed by dinner at Stonefire Grill or Applebee’s. Our dad took my brother to watch two Pokemon movies there. I dragged my father to watch The Twilight Saga: Eclipse with me opening weekend.
Every night, however, was for first dates.
My brother joked that the amount of movies he “stole” by sneaking in double features probably led to its decline.
But that wasn’t really the case. The theater shut down during the pandemic, like everything else, and never re-opened. Instead, Pacific Theatres filed for bankruptcy a year into the pandemic and shut down all its locations, not just Winnetka.
What's next
Documents from the Los Angeles City Planning Department show that there are plans to turn this place, the pinnacle of my youth, into a new car delivery and service center. It’s not yet clear when construction will begin.
But, while it still stands, each time I drive by, memories come back — it's a Friday night, I'm 13-years-old and sitting in the car with my best friend, getting dropped off by my dad at Winnetka.
Candidates Xavier Becerra, left, Katie Porter, Matt Mahan and Antonio Villaraigosa debate at Pomona College in Claremont last month.
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Recent polling suggests it’s unlikely that two Republicans would lock Democrats out of the November gubernatorial election. But some liberal activists are still panicking about the possibility of a MAGA governor. Their solution could delay California’s already slow ballot-counting.
How we got here: To avoid a dreaded scenario in which Democrats are locked out of the November general election, many Democrats coalesced around former Rep. Eric Swalwell, who ultimately flamed out after multiple women accused him of sexual assault. That fear has morphed into wariness, leading some party activists and influencers to encourage people to hold off on voting early, watch the polls, then vote for the candidate with the most support just before Election Day.
Is this idea even legal? The push to vote late flies in the face of recent pleas from election officials and Gov. Gavin Newsom for voters to get their ballots in early in the hopes of speeding up California’s notoriously slow vote-counting process. Attorney General Rob Bonta, a fellow Democrat, told reporters last week that the social media posts urging late voting could be misinformation, disinformation and “potentially unlawful,” and Secretary of State Shirley Weber said her office would “look into” those social posts.
Read on ... for more about this idea.
Some California Democrats have a plan to avoid disaster in the governor's race: Wait until the last minute to vote.
With no one candidate emerging as a clear favorite and an open primary where the top two advance regardless of party affiliation, panic has set in for some who plan to vote Democratic.
That fear has morphed into wariness, leading some party activists and influencers to encourage people to hold off on voting early, watch the polls, then vote for the candidate with the most support just before Election Day.
In a “normal year,” Katie Evans-Reber of San Francisco said she would probably back former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter even though the Democrat is not likely to advance to November given her current polling. But this year the stakes are higher, she said, and as a lesbian woman, any of the Democrats would be more aligned with her core values than a Republican.
She fears supporters of President Donald Trump who have soured on him could back Republican Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, giving him enough of a boost to match the power of Trump’s endorsement for Steve Hilton, the former Fox News host who is leading all other candidates in the polls. That would send both Republicans to the runoff.
“The thing that flipped for me was going from, ‘I don't really know what to do,’ to, ‘I strategically am not making a decision,” Evans-Reber said.
In pole position is Xavier Becerra, the former Health and Human Services secretary who surged from single digits to the top of the polls after Swalwell’s downfall. As his popularity soared, so has the scrutiny of his record at HHS and as California’s attorney general.
Behind Becerra are progressive Democratic challengers Tom Steyer, a former businessman turned billionaire activist, and Porter. San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan has also positioned himself as a tech-friendly moderate and ally of Silicon Valley.
Evans-Reber and other impassioned Democrats have been urging others to follow the wait-and-see strategy by sharing videos and posts on social media.
One post even falsely attributed the strategy to Heather Cox Richardson, a political historian and popular Democratic influencer who writes the Substack newsletter Letters from an American. That erroneous post was the first one Evans-Reber saw and forwarded. She later had to follow up with a disclaimer that Cox Richardson was not the author.
“It's not like, bad advice, but it's 100% not coming from me,” Cox Richardson told CalMatters in an interview.
Democratic political consultant Paul Mitchell disagrees.
“It's just a bad message,” he said. “I think they should always have a message of, ‘As soon as you get your ballot, fill it out, turn it in, mail it in and get it done.”
Mitchell said although activists might talk about and push for a strategic voting plan, trying to organize a movement like that at scale would likely not produce significant results.
“I think people vote for whoever they were going to vote for anyway,” said Mitchell, whose company tracks how many ballots are turned in each day statewide.
An empty stage after the gubernatorial debate on the campus of Pomona College in Claremont on April 28, 2026.
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The push to vote late flies in the face of recent pleas from election officials and Gov. Gavin Newsom for voters to get their ballots in early in the hopes of speeding up California’s notoriously slow vote-counting process. Attorney General Rob Bonta, a fellow Democrat, told reporters last week that the social media posts urging late voting could be misinformation, disinformation and “potentially unlawful,” and Secretary of State Shirley Weber said her office would “look into” those social posts.
“Time is of the essence in preventing election lies from taking hold,” Newsom wrote in a recent letter addressed to all 58 county registrars urging them to “tabulate and release results quickly and accurately.”
Turning in a mail-in ballot on Election Day, as some activists propose, is the worst possible scenario for election administration officials.
It creates what Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, calls the “pig in the python effect.” County election offices are inundated with in-person ballots on Election Day, as well as mail-in ballots that require a meticulous process of signature matching, envelope opening and extracting the ballot before it can be counted.
Mark DiCamillo, who runs polling for the Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, said pollsters are doing their best to produce accurate results, but in an election with so many variables, even the best surveys could be off-base.
The past trend of low voter turnout in gubernatorial primaries, plus a potentially confusing array of 61 candidates for governor alone, make it difficult to determine who the likely voters will be and account for that in their surveys.
“This election's got all the elements you have to deal with,” DiCamillo said. “It’s a challenge for the polling profession.”
Despite the concerns about a slow vote count and imprecise polling, Evans-Reber says she still plans to stick to her last-minute voting strategy. She doesn’t trust that mailing her ballot will reach the county elections office in time. She plans to bring her completed ballot to the office or one of the county’s vote centers and hand it directly to an election official.
“I am going to cast the ballot at the very last possible moment,” Evans-Reber said. “I’m going to wait until polling day.”
Brenda Lopez-Ardon holds a mattress to show a staffer from state Sen. Sasha Pérez’s office mold growing on it in a children’s bedroom during a tour of the property. March 26, 2026.
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Tenants of a close-knit Altadena complex say Regency Management ignored toxic contamination and basic repairs long before the Altadena fire.
More details: Although Regency Management replaced the windows, residents said they were forced to camp out in their apartments without electricity or hot water for months in the fire’s aftermath because most could not afford to move as the fire strained the area’s housing market.
Why now: Brenda Lopez-Ardon, a community organizer and tenant, spoke at a press conference last month in front of the building where she has lived her whole life and is raising her young daughter. Lopez-Ardon and several tenants ushered state Sen. Sasha Pérez through the property, pointing out damages from the fire and water, along with buckling floors and discolored tap water.
Read on... for more on the press conference from this Altadena apartment.
More than 15 months after the Eaton Fire, residents of an Altadena apartment complex say they are still fighting a “notorious” landlord to repair a fire-damaged building that remains unlivable and contaminated with toxic ash and soot.
Longtime tenants of 403 Figueroa Dr., who describe the complex as a close-knit village, say their property manager, Regency Management Inc., has ignored years of repair requests and pleas to clean up the property after the fire razed most of the block.
Although Regency Management replaced the windows, residents said they were forced to camp out in their apartments without electricity or hot water for months in the fire’s aftermath because most could not afford to move as the fire strained the area’s housing market.
“Homes in this community are being rebuilt up to code, but our building remains frozen in time since Jan. 7,” said Brenda Lopez-Ardon, a community organizer and tenant, at a press conference last month.
Brenda Lopez-Ardon (second from right) speaks at a community rally and press conference with members of tenants’ union Comité 403 in front of their building. March 26, 2026.
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She spoke in front of the building where she has lived her whole life and is raising her young daughter.
Later that evening, as kids raced on scooters through the courtyard of the rundown two-story building, Lopez-Ardon and several tenants ushered state Sen. Sasha Pérez through the property, pointing out damages from the fire and water, along with buckling floors and discolored tap water.
In one apartment, mold bloomed through paint on a wall in a children’s bedroom, and also grew on a mattress and plush toys. Residents complained of rat and cockroach infestations.
Brenda Lopez-Ardon (center) shows state Sen. Sasha Pérez (right) water damage from a leak inside an apartment at her Figueroa Drive building during a tour of the property. March 26, 2026.
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“We are not animals, to be living this way,” said Yoselin Ayala, one of the tenants sharing her experience with Pérez.
“I’m very upset and frustrated to see what’s happened here,” said Pérez, who represents California’s 25th Senate District.
“Things like broken bricks and falling walls and, you know, other fire damage, melted parts of the building, those are things that should have been taken care of a long time ago,” she told The LA Local.
Regency Management and its owner Swaranjit “Mike” Nijjar, have not responded to requests for comment.
Brenda Lopez-Ardon (second from right) speaks at a community rally and press conference with members of tenants’ union Comité 403 in front of their building. March 26, 2026.
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Going on offense
The Eaton Fire blew out nearly all of the building’s windows, destroyed large sections of the property’s perimeter wall, burned down carport shade structures in the parking lot and left the building without power or hot water for months.
The fire also left the units coated in toxic ash and soot containing dangerously elevated levels of lead, according to a report by the LA County Department of Public Health.
Lopez-Ardon said many of the apartments were cleaned by local volunteers, and when Regency Management finally sent cleaners, they were maintenance workers, not a professional remediation company with special equipment and training on dealing with disasters.
Children take part in a community rally in front of their apartment building in Altadena. Parents say they’re concerned about toxins left behind from the Eaton Fire affecting kids’ health. March 26, 2026.
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In response, the residents formed a tenants’ union to demand their rights as renters and move “from the defense to the offense,” Lopez-Ardon said.
Their efforts have met with limited success, and the group is now exploring options including forming a co-op to buy the property from Nijjar, a man California’s attorney general has called “notorious” for exploiting tenants.
California sues landlord
Attorney General Rob Bonta sued Nijjar, his companies and several of his relatives last summer. The suit alleges “inhumane living conditions” across properties owned by the real estate developer, his sister and children. It also alleges the company had several breaches of lease agreements and violations of the state’s Tenant Protection Act.
“The Nijjar Companies rent out unsafe and uninhabitable units, disregard tenants’ requests for repairs, and fail to eradicate pests, inflicting harm and anguish on tenants,” according to the complaint filed in June in Los Angeles Superior Court.
The family’s empire encompasses 22,000 rental units throughout California, owned through a byzantine collection of more than 150 limited partnerships and corporations and administered by 11 management companies, including Regency Management.
The lawsuit is ongoing.
Brenda Lopez-Ardon (left) stands with neighbors at a community rally and press conference with members of tenants’ union Comité 403 in front of their building. March 26, 2026.
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For the tenants on Figueroa Drive, the fire damage was simply the last straw on top of longstanding neglect and repair requests they say Regency has ignored for years.
Lopez-Ardon, 26, said the pedestrian entrance gate has been broken off and wide open for at least 10 years. Lax security has also made some residents fearful of another major threat in the area: ICE.
Blanca, who only gave her first name because of privacy concerns, has lived in the building for more than 20 years. She said that immigration enforcement agents have entered the building twice in the last year looking for a specific person. They left empty-handed both times.
Spots of mold on a plush toy in a children’s bedroom where it also grows on a wall and a mattress in an apartment at 403 Figueroa Dr. in Altadena, owned by the Nijjar family. March 26, 2026.
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Published May 12, 2026 11:24 AM
A newly formed committee will ensure the health department implements its civil law enforcement policy, which instructs public health workers on how to protect patients brought in by law enforcement, including immigration agents.
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The L.A. Board of Supervisors today approved creating a committee to ensure the health department implements its civil law enforcement policy, which instructs public health workers on how to protect patients brought in by law enforcement, including immigration agents.
Supervisor Kathryn Barger abstained from the item.
What we know:The committee — made up of hospital officials, county counsel and the office of immigration affairs — will require training for health workers on the civil law enforcement interaction policy. The group will also collect feedback from staff on how to improve the policy and report back to the board in a month.
Background: The L.A. County policy, which went into effect in March, reiterates that all patients have the right to communicate with loved ones and connect to legal support. Health workers and advocates have shared concerns that not enough people know about the policy.
Why now? Supervisor Hilda Solis, who introduced Tuesday’s motion, said since ICE raids ramped up last summer, public health workers have had more interactions with federal agents. And in trying to protect patients, Solis added, some workers risk being accused of obstructing justice.
“Despite the county’s sensitive location policy … immigration enforcement officials have pushed boundaries or blatantly ignored laws,” Solis said. “This has put many of our county employees in a difficult position of trying to enforce the law and protect patients’ rights.”
The U.S. war with Iran has pushed inflation to its highest level in almost three years.
Why it matters: Consumer prices in April were up 3.8% from a year ago, according to a report Tuesday from the Labor Department. That was the biggest annual increase since May 2023.
Gas prices are a big driver: Gasoline prices have jumped sharply since the war began, snarling tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital corridor for energy shipments. The average price of regular gas is $4.50 a gallon, according to AAA.
Read on ... for a helpful chart and three areas that exemplify the rising cost of living.
The U.S. war with Iran has pushed inflation to its highest level in almost three years.
Consumer prices in April were up 3.8% from a year ago, according to a report Tuesday from the Labor Department. That was the biggest annual increase since May 2023.
Prices rose 0.6% between March and April.
From gas prices to housing, here are three things to know about the rising cost of living.
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Gas prices are a big driver
Gasoline prices have jumped sharply since the war began, snarling tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital corridor for energy shipments. The average price of regular gas is $4.50 a gallon, according to AAA. That's up 38 cents from a month ago. The jump in energy prices accounted for 40% of the monthly increase in the consumer price index in April.
Rising fuel costs are affecting other prices as well
When energy costs jump sharply, it can have spillover effects. Air fares, for example, jumped 2.8% last month and are more than 20% higher than they were a year ago, as airlines struggle with a spike in jet fuel prices.
The cost of diesel fuel has risen by $1.88 a gallon since the war began. If that lasts, it could put upward pressure on the price of everything that's delivered by truck or train.
Excluding volatile food and energy costs, "core" inflation was 2.8% in April.
Housing prices also contributed to higher inflation in April
Housing costs were also a driver of inflation, jumping 0.6% between March and April, but some of that is a statistical fluke resulting from the six-week government shutdown last fall. Government number-crunchers were temporarily idled in October, so were unable to collect housing prices that month. That's had the effect of artificially lowering the measure of housing inflation. Tuesday's report provides a kind of catch-up.
