The Brief

A new California law clarifies that landlords — not tenants — are responsible for cleaning rental homes covered in debris from disasters, such as the Palisades and Eaton fires that devastated parts of L.A. County earlier this year.

On Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 610, which stipulates that when natural disasters cause damage to rental housing, “it shall be the duty of a landlord” to remove “hazards arising from the disaster, including, but not limited to, the presence of mold, smoke, smoke residue, smoke odor, ash, asbestos or water damage.”

The law addresses the confusion many renters grappling with the aftermath of the January fires have faced. Many apartments were left standing but choked with toxic ash. Some landlords refused to clean the debris, leaving tenants unable to return home.

In the months since the fires, some local officials gave unclear or non-committal answers about tenants’ rights and landlords’ clean-up responsibilities.

LAist reporting informed push for legislative change

State Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, a Democrat representing a district that includes Pasadena and Altadena, said the legislation she introduced was driven by tenant complaints her office received, as well as LAist’s reporting on the lack of clarity over clean-up procedures in rental housing.

“The reporting that you all had done over at LAist was also really helpful,” Pérez said. “We're hearing directly from constituents and have heard all of these concerns. And here's reporting from journalists in the Los Angeles area to further support these claims that I’m making that this is a major issue.”

An analysis of the bill presented to the Senate Judiciary Committee cited stories by LAist and reporting from the Los Angeles Times to show that existing law had left tenants confused about how to get their homes cleaned.

The backstory

Last month, L.A. County settled a lawsuit brought by tenants in Altadena who alleged that county public health officials had failed to protect tenants dealing with post-fire damage to rental homes. The county agreed to enforce cleaning requirements for landlords.

The city of Pasadena is facing a similar lawsuit.

Shortly after the Eaton Fire, Pasadena health officials told residents that ash spewed into homes was hazardous and should be professionally remediated. But city code inspectors told renters that the presence of ash did not violate local habitability codes because those codes did not explicitly contain the word “ash.”

City housing officials told tenants worried about the lack of clean-up that they could sue their landlord.

SB 610 will change how city officials communicate to tenants and landlords around these issues in the future, said Lisa Derderian, Pasadena’s spokesperson.

“This law makes important changes in the obligations of a landlord to the tenant that will play out in messaging,” Derderian said in an email to LAist. “The city takes habitability concerns for any cause seriously and inspects accordingly.”

Similar challenges played out in the city of L.A. During a February web meeting, L.A. housing official Robert Galardi told renters they were responsible for cleaning inside their own units, a claim that was contradicted by a housing department spokesperson later that month when LAist asked about the city’s guidance.

In response to LAist’s questions, Housing Department spokesperson Sharon Sandow said “landlords must remediate hazardous ash debris in rental units.”

Clearing up confusion created by gaps in the law

The law also requires landlords to let tenants move back in at their pre-disaster rental rate and mandates that landlords return rental payments for months when tenants were unable to live in the unit.

Landlord groups said most property owners already have taken responsibility for cleaning their rental housing units.

Debra Carlton with the California Apartment Association said the new law clarifies but does not broaden the scope of what landlords must do in the wake of a natural disaster. The law makes it clear that landlords will not have to rebuild destroyed properties.

Carlton said the law “reaffirms common-sense standards for addressing debris and smoke damage before a unit is reoccupied.”

Tenant advocates said the law’s passage is a victory for tenants who’ve long argued that the responsibility for cleaning rental properties lies with the landlords who own those properties.

Katie Clark — an organizer with the Altadena Tenants Union, a group created in the wake of the Eaton Fire — said SB 610 finally clears up the confusion around this issue.

“This closes that gap,” Clark said. “There is no nuance. There is no room for misunderstanding. [Ash] is absolutely now included in habitability questions.”

Some renters already have moved on 

The change may be coming too late for some renters. More than 10 months after the fires, one couple told LAist they have given up on returning to their previous home.

Marah Eakin, Andrew Morgan and their kids finally settled into a new home in July after being forced to live out of suitcases after the Eaton Fire spewed ash into their Pasadena rental home in January.

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David Wagner

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LAist

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Marah Eakin and Andrew Morgan were renting a home in Pasadena that had smoke damage from the Eaton Fire. They said their landlord never agreed to clean the home, despite testing they said they paid for that revealed high levels of lead.

“We didn't see an end in sight,” Eakin said. “For a while, we were moving every five days, every week, and that was terrible.”

The couple said they and their 7-year-old twins moved nine times before settling down in July with a long-term lease on a home in Altadena. Morgan said the instability was especially tough on their kids.

“When they say that they miss the old house, some other old stuff, it's just heart-wrenching,” he said.

Trevor Barrocas, a property manager with Cornerstone R/E Management, told LAist that Eakin and Morgan’s landlord submitted a claim to California’s Fair Plan insurance program requesting remediation, but the claim was initially denied.

“The property has still not been fully remediated,” Barrocas said in an email to LAist. He said efforts to clean the property are ongoing.

“The property owner has waited through months-long delays by CA Fair Plan for answers, approvals and direction,” Barrocas said. “The unprecedented circumstances and result of the January fires have… been felt by landlords, homeowners and tenants alike.”

Lines stretched around the block Sunday at the Original Saugus Cafe in Santa Clarita. It was supposed to be the restaurant's last day before closing after 139 years — making it the oldest continually operated restaurant in Los Angeles County.

But earlier this week, a sign was posted on the door saying, "Reopening under new ownership soon," although there were few details about who would be running it.

The sign was a surprise to the Mercado family, who have operated the restaurant for nearly 30 years. The family now is in a legal dispute with the Arklin family, who owns the property, about the potential re-opening and who owns the historic name.

The background

Alfredo Mercado worked his way up from bartender to restaurateur, purchasing the business in 1998. Since then Mercado and his daughters have operated the restaurant, leasing from the Arklin family. For most of that time, according to the Mercado side, the two families maintained good terms. Property owner Hank Arklin Sr., a former state assemblyman who owned other properties in the area, kept a verbal month-to-month agreement with the Mercados — no written lease required.

That changed when Arklin died in August at age 97.

New terms, failed negotiations

Larry Goodman, who manages multiple properties for the Arklin family's company, North Valley Construction, took over the landlord relationship. In September, the Mercado family say they were presented with a new written month-to-month lease.

Yecenia Ponce, Alfredo's daughter, said the new terms included various changes to the existing agreement, including a rent increase and charges for equipment.

Months of back and forth negotiations about different options, including selling the business, ultimately fell apart. Their attorney, Steffanie Stelnick, says they are being forced out, without proper legal notice, and has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Goodman saying the family has plans to continue running the business.

LAist reached out to Goodman for comment repeatedly Wednesday and Thursday by phone but did not hear back.

Goodman told The Signal, a Santa Clarita valley news outlet, that Alfredo Mercado had changed his mind several times in recent weeks about keeping the business.

“I said, ‘Fine,’ then I got out and got someone to take it over,” Goodman said.

He said he'd been in contact with Eduardo Reyna, the CEO of Dario's, a local Santa Clarita restaurant, and that the cafe could re-open as soon as Jan. 16.

Who owns what?

The dispute also focuses on who owns the rights to the Original Saugus Cafe name.

Ponce said when her father purchased the restaurant in 1998, it was called The Olde Saugus Cafe, but the name was then changed to The Original Saugus Cafe. State records show that name registered as an LLC under Alfredo Mercado.

After Arklin’s death, however, the Arklin family filed a pending trademark application to lay its own claim to the name.

The Mercado family is resisting.

"As long as they don't buy the name from us, we're not handing it over," Ponce said.

Ponce said the family had no idea the landlord planned to continue operations.

"We truly did think we were closing," she said. "We were not aware that they had plans to continue."

She apologized to customers for the confusion.

Whether the decades-old restaurant name survives — and under whose control — may ultimately be decided in court.

Community leaders and politicians in Los Angeles are responding in outrage after an ICE agent shot and killed a woman in Minnesota on Wednesday.

The fatal ICE shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good has sparked anger and fear in Los Angeles, which has been an epicenter of federal immigration enforcement since the summer.

Jorge-Mario Cabrera with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA, says the killing was upsetting but not surprising.

" Los Angeles has been witness of the escalating aggressiveness of these federal agents against the community," he told LAist.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has defended the shooting, saying Good was trying to run agents over with her car. That account has been disputed by eyewitnesses, the mayor of Minneapolis and other officials. Bystander video also challenges the federal narrative, according to MPR News.

L.A. politicians have joined a chorus demanding justice for Good. Mayor Karen Bass posted on X, saying that ICE agents are waging "a purposeful campaign of fear and intimidation" on American cities.

"The senseless killing of an innocent and unarmed wife and mother by ICE agents today in Minneapolis is shocking and tragic and should never have occurred," she said in the post.

L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn called on Noem to withdraw ICE from U.S. cities.

“These ICE agents are undertrained and trigger happy and everyone who has seen this video knows ICE murdered this woman,” she said in a statement.

Some protesters also gathered outside the federal building in downtown L.A. Thursday morning to condemn the killing.