The Brief

By law, the American Hotel in downtown Los Angeles is supposed to be reserved for residents who can’t afford to live anywhere else. For decades, the building was a haven in the city’s sky-high housing market, where artists, musicians and people down on their luck could rent rooms for about $500 a month. At the end of the day, longtime tenants would hang out at Al’s Bar, a legendary punk and alternative rock venue on the ground floor where bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers played long before they sold out stadiums.

But amid the largest homelessness crisis in the nation, the American’s owner has turned the building into a boutique hotel where tourists can book rooms for as much as $209 a night.

And the city has done nothing to stop him.

Long before Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass declared a housing emergency last year, city officials recognized that affordable housing was vanishing and sought to address it by making it difficult for developers to scoop up the residential hotels whose single-room dwellings were the only places many people could afford. Residential hotels consist of small, bare-bones rooms, some with shared bathrooms and most with no kitchens, in aging downtown buildings and roadside motels. In 2008, the L.A. City Council passed an ordinance to place strict limits on the conversion of more than 300 such buildings, totaling nearly 19,000 rooms (about 15% of the city’s lowest-cost housing units today).

But seven years later, the American’s new owner, Mark Verge, called the residents to a meeting. He said he planned to remodel the crumbling building and, according to tenants, offered to pay them to move. For months before the meeting, rumors had swirled around the American, said Jomar Giner, a barista who lived there until late 2014. The main topic on everyone’s mind, she said, was: “They’re going to ask us to move, but where are we going to live?”

Many of the American’s residents said they took Verge up on his offer, unaware that his plan to eventually turn the American into a tourist hotel was supposed to be illegal under the residential hotel law. The conversion disrupted a tight-knit community that had lived at the hotel for years — including at least one person who said he ended up sleeping in his car.

Under the law, Verge was required to compensate the city for the loss of affordable housing by either building replacement units or paying into a fund for housing construction. In Verge’s case, that could have cost more than $10 million. But like many landlords, Verge did neither of those things, and the city Housing Department didn’t compel him to, even though the law provides for $250-per-day fines and jail time for violators.

Scouring city records and online advertisements, Capital & Main and ProPublica identified 21 residential hotels, totaling more than 800 dwelling units, that were supposed to be preserved as housing but that have recently been on offer to tourists.

“That is illegal by statute and problematic for several reasons,” because residential hotels are supposed to be for the city’s lowest-income people, said Deepika Sharma, a housing law professor at the University of Southern California. “These are the folks struggling the most.”

It’s a staggering loss considering the severity of L.A.’s affordable housing shortage and what it would cost to replace 800 dwellings: more than $475 million at the current average cost of nearly $600,000 for the construction of a single affordable unit.

Some hotels have done little to hide their boutique transformations, advertising “expertly crafted” cocktails in a lobby bar and “a whimsical home away from home” for $270 a night. The hotels list rooms on their websites, on travel platforms like Expedia and Booking.com and on outdoor signs.

The American says on its website that the hotel in L.A.’s Arts District provides “affordable options for guests who are looking to make the most of their visit to the city of angels without blowing their entire vacation budget.”

Yet none of the 21 hotels, including the American, have received clearances from the city that would indicate they’ve replaced the low-cost housing they’ve taken off the market, Housing Department records show. Nor have the owners taken the other option of paying the fee to the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund. And none have been fined or prosecuted for failing to comply.

L.A. Housing Department director Ann Sewill referred questions to her staff. “We need to enforce it better,” said Greg Good, a senior policy adviser at the agency. “We’re working 24/7 to get there, and we’ve got to get better.”

A man pushes his cart filled with aluminum cans past the American Hotel in April. He said he has lived in L.A.’s Arts District for some 40 years and currently stays in a small room inside a gas station.

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Verge — who founded Southern California’s go-to apartment listing service, Westside Rentals, before selling it to CoStar Group, the parent company of Apartments.com — insisted he was unaware of the residential hotel law and of the American’s inclusion on the city’s residential hotel inventory.

“I don’t know about this magical list,” Verge said, though records show the city informed his lawyer that the American was residential after he bought the hotel in 2013.

Verge said he has been paying the city’s hotel tax for years and noted that he has openly advertised the American as a hotel.

“Do you know how many banners I’ve put on that thing?” he said. “I definitely don’t think I’m violating any law.”

The story of how Verge was able to convert the American into a tourist hotel underlines the city’s failure to preserve affordable housing — and how easily landlords have avoided the law.

One of the most pro-tenant ordinances

Today, more than 1 in 10 unhoused people in the U.S. — some 75,000 people — live in Los Angeles County. Far beyond downtown’s Skid Row neighborhood, tents and tarps are jammed together under bridges alongside overflowing shopping carts, broken-down bicycles and blankets. Men and women wrap themselves in ragged blankets under the overhangs of grocery stores and strip malls. They spread bedrolls in parks and next to the stars of celebrities on Hollywood Boulevard.

A roadside encampment in L.A. in December 2022. Mayor Karen Bass declared a state of emergency over the city’s homelessness crisis on her first full day in office.

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Frederic J. Brown

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The human misery on display across the city made homelessness the central issue in the 2022 mayoral race and drove Bass to proclaim a housing emergency on her first day in office.

But in reality, the emergency has been coming for a long time. Nearly two decades ago, L.A. officials foresaw that rapid gentrification would eat away at residents’ ability to live in the city. Residential hotels were rapidly being converted to condos.

So, in 2008, the City Council voted to preserve the hotels with a law. L.A.’s then-housing director Mercedes Márquez — who now leads the mayor’s effort to combat homelessness — called it at the time, “without question, one of the most pro-tenant ordinances to come before the City Council in its entire history.”

City officials drew up a list of 336 hotels, using the state’s legal definition of a residential hotel: a building of six or more units that are the primary residences of their guests. Some were traditional single-room occupancy buildings with shared bathrooms. Others were motels with various claims to fame. One was the hotel where singer Janis Joplin was found dead; another served as the site of Julia Roberts’ apartment in the final scene of “Pretty Woman.”

By the time of the ordinance, the once-grand downtown hotels that served travelers in the early 20th century and the roadside motels that catered to mid-century motorists had fallen out of fashion with tourists. City officials determined they were being used as living spaces for local residents, not tourist accommodations.

The new law strictly limited what residential hotel owners could do with their properties. But Márquez and the city attorney’s office assured councilmembers it would stand up in court: A nearly identical San Francisco law had been upheld by California’s Supreme Court in 2002, and the U.S. Supreme Court had reviewed the case, affirming the state’s power to decide such issues. Márquez signaled that enforcement would be stringent.

City councilmember Bill Rosendahl, who strongly supported the ordinance, asked Márquez somewhat tongue-in-cheek questions about a prime beachfront property in his district that had been designated as a residential hotel.

“My God, I could tear that down and build high-end condos and move in the rich. Does this stop me from doing that?” Rosendahl asked.

“Pretty much,” Márquez replied.

The law “is designed to make it difficult,” although not impossible, for owners to convert their buildings into condos or tourist hotels, Márquez told the City Council. Owners would first have to apply to the Housing Department for approval. They would then have to either replace all the residential housing units or pay a fee, set at the acquisition cost of nearby property plus the cost of constructing 80% of the replacement dwellings.

Márquez referred an interview request to the mayor’s press office, which did not make her available. And she did not respond to emailed questions.

“I would think the owners would find it quite onerous,” Gary Painter, an economist who specializes in housing at USC, said in a recent interview. “Anything that makes it harder for them to fully exercise their options on their real estate, they’re going to be upset about.”

Many hotel owners are indeed unhappy with the residential hotel designations. Ray Patel, who heads the North East Los Angeles Hotel Owners Association, said the law was an unfair attempt to shift the burden of L.A.’s housing problems onto hotel owners.

“The city was trying to avoid the elephant in the room: how difficult it is to build housing,” he said. “There’s too much red tape.”

But in adopting the law with no opposition, the City Council decided that limiting hotel owners’ property rights was in the public interest because the loss of residential hotel rooms had become a housing emergency that affected elderly, disabled and low-income people “who are least able to cope with displacement in the Los Angeles housing market.” The council predicted that “unregulated conversion or demolition of residential hotels would lead to an unacceptable and socially harmful increase in homelessness.”

The ordinance allowed owners to appeal their designations by submitting tax records, housekeeping reports and guest registration records to prove their buildings had operated as traveler hotels. Patel, who owns the Welcome Inn on old Route 66 — Colorado Boulevard in the Eagle Rock neighborhood — said he submitted reams of paperwork, got his motel off the list and helped others to do the same. About 100 properties were removed, though others have since been added. The city’s most recent list contains more than 300 hotels.

Some hotel owners have tried to challenge the ordinance in court, arguing that the city’s designation of the motels as residential amounts to an unconstitutional government taking of private property. But last year, a federal judge dismissed one claim, noting that the ordinance falls within the city’s authority to promote residents’ health and welfare. And in 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected another hotel’s claim and upheld the ordinance as a “rational” attempt to preserve low-income housing.

Barbara Schultz, director of housing justice at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, said the law is well-settled. Her 2002 lawsuit against the city’s redevelopment agency resulted in a settlement that preserved downtown residential hotels and sparked the city’s interest in an ordinance.

“The city is squandering a great opportunity to have more housing,” Schultz said. Without tight enforcement, she said, “people on the street who could be in housing are not.”

By the time Verge bought the American, the Housing Department had determined it to be a residential hotel in 2008 and again in 2011. City records show Verge’s attorney inquired about the American’s status, and in a 2013 letter, the department confirmed it was subject to the residential hotel law, providing him a copy of the ordinance.

“I don’t even recall anything like that,” Verge said in an interview, asserting that he bought the American because he intended to run it as a tourist hotel.

How Verge turned the American into a tourist hotel

Verge said in an interview that he wanted to buy the American in 2013 because of its rich history and his own memories of hanging out with friends at Al’s Bar.

“We were kids from Santa Monica and liked to go there,” he said. It was, he added, a “different world.”

Al’s Bar, located on the American’s ground floor, rose to fame in the city’s arts and music scene in the 1980s and 1990s as it attracted up-and-coming bands like Nirvana, Hole and Sonic Youth. Some tenants thought of Al’s as their living room where they played pool and drank beer. But it also attracted celebrities. Then-Gov. Jerry Brown and singer Linda Ronstadt once dropped in at Al’s, where graffiti covered the walls and a neon sign near the bar warned, “TIP OR DIE.”

Patrons, including some American Hotel tenants, hang out at Al’s Bar in the late 1990s. The bar closed in 2001.

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But above all, the American provided cheap housing for people who didn’t have other options. The American, which was originally called the Canadian, was built in 1905 as the one of the only Los Angeles hotels where African Americans were welcome. And ever since, it had been a refuge for people on the margins of society. It was a classic residential hotel that one former tenant dubbed “a flophouse for artists,” offering basic single rooms and shared bathrooms.

At the American, former residents said they needed no application or credit check. A month’s rent would buy a month’s shelter, no questions asked.

When Verge took over, the American was in bad shape. In 2012, a housing inspector had warned the building department that the hotel was in danger of collapsing.

Verge denied offering buyouts to move and said the residents requested relocation payments from him. “I’m not a cash for keys guy,” he said. But seven former residents interviewed by Capital & Main and ProPublica said they had received a buyout offer and knew of others who had as well. A printed notice provided by a former resident says, “the owner of the building would like to offer relocation assistance to anyone already considering a move.” The former residents said Verge also promised that if they were willing to endure the noise and dust of a remodel, he would let them stay. And some did.

Verge said the American had been partially operating as a tourist hotel when he bought it. But five tenants said that wasn’t the case. “They were all residents,” Giner wrote in an email. A photo published in the Los Angeles Times in 2013 shows Verge perched atop a pay phone outside the hotel. Just above him is a sign that reads, “Apartments for Rent,” with the name of his company, Westside Rentals.

Verge had started other hotels, restaurants and bars and seemed to bet that the American’s mystique would lure guests willing to lug suitcases up stairs and share bathrooms for a chance to drink in the hotel’s bohemian past. Graffitied walls, an Al’s sign and a giant mural of L.A. artist Ed Ruscha adorn the building’s façade, though most of the American’s artist residents and the noise and chaos of the hotel’s heyday are long gone.

A guest leaves the American Hotel in April.

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For Verge, who once owned racehorses and was briefly the CEO of Santa Anita Park, it was a bet that paid off.

Yet Verge never applied to the Housing Department for permission to convert his new purchase, according to department records. And as he remade the American into a tourist hotel, Verge suffered no legal repercussions for failing to build replacement housing or pay the in-lieu housing fee to the city. Either option would have been costly: In addition to site acquisition, the cost of building affordable housing averaged about $450,000 per unit between 2014 and 2016, according to the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley.

Even when the American remodel began, it slipped undetected through a key enforcement mechanism in the residential hotel law: The Housing Department must approve building permit applications at residential hotels to ensure the owners aren’t converting rooms into tourist accommodations.

Five times between 2014 and 2018, the American applied for building permits. Verge repaired a crack in an exterior wall and put a new roof on the building. He remodeled bathrooms and repaired drywall and stucco. But only one permit was ever reviewed for adherence to the residential hotel law, according to building department records.

In 2016, a housing inspector found 32 rooms had been remodeled and a laundry area had been added, noting “permit required.” Records show the inspector didn’t inquire about whether the rooms were redone for short-term guests and never followed up. Verge wasn’t cited for violations of the residential hotel law.

The Housing Department’s code enforcement director Robert Galardi told Capital & Main and ProPublica that the hotel was inspected last November, resulting in “minimal code violations with compliance obtained in a timely manner.” The inspection made no mention of the hotel’s tourist offerings, which the hotel advertises on a sandwich board sign just outside the front door.

Told of the tourist conversion, Galardi said he’d “conduct further investigation.”

Failure to enforce

The Housing Department has plenty of mechanisms for enforcing the law, yet the city has used hardly any of them — even in the face of what appear to be violations.

The TikTok account of the Hometel Suites in Koreatown features videos of guest rooms and the reception desk as K-pop songs play in the background. Guests can dine on $115 steamed crab dinners at the hotel’s seafood restaurant. Years ago, the Housing Department had determined Hometel — once known as the Hamilton — to be a residential hotel, and in 2008 and in 2011 the department informed the hotel’s then-owners it was subject to the ordinance.

Galardi said his inspectors saw no evidence of short-term rentals at the Hometel when they visited the hotel in May 2019. But at least since March of that year, a three-story-tall banner on the façade has shown a family with suitcases on a luggage cart and the message “Book your stay today.”

General manager Becky Hong said neither she nor the owner would comment on Hometel’s residential hotel status or city enforcement, and she did not respond to emailed questions.

A review of more than 10,000 pages of Housing Department documents obtained under the California Public Records Act, including inspectors’ notes, correspondence and other enforcement records, along with interviews with housing officials, shows hotel owners have little reason to fear fines or prosecution for violating the residential hotel law.

Logan Altman, the former owner of the Ramona Motel in South Los Angeles, said when he bought the property in 2016, the previous owner had assured him he could rent out rooms on a nightly basis without fear of a city crackdown.

“What I heard was enforcement was somewhat lax,” he said. “The seller said he hadn’t had any problems.” And neither did Altman, according to Housing Department records. He sold the motel to a nonprofit housing developer in 2021.

In the past 15 years, L.A. Housing Department data shows, the city has cited just 17 hotels under the law. However, the city’s recordkeeping seems deficient: Capital & Main and ProPublica found two additional hotels it cited by separately looking through enforcement records provided by the department. Only four of the 21 residential hotels that Capital & Main and ProPublica found marketing rooms to tourists have been given warnings by housing inspectors for residential hotel violations.

A block away from Hometel at the H Hotel, a neon H on the building’s brick façade signals the former East West Hotel’s new hip vibe. A Saturday-night stay ranges from $200 to $270, and a crystal chandelier hangs above the lobby near a lounge where guests can order brunch and $115 bottles of champagne.

The H Hotel, formerly known as the East West Hotel, on 8th Street in L.A.’s Koreatown.

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A vendor sells clothing and kitchen items on 8th Street near the H Hotel.

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Barbara Davidson

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People dine at the H Hotel’s bustling restaurant, the H Cafe.

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Last year, a housing inspector noted that Nojan Haddadi, the H Hotel’s operations manager, told him that the property is currently being used as a “transient hotel,” using the legal term for hotels that rent rooms to tourists. But the hotel, which is officially designated residential, never applied to convert to a tourist hotel, Housing Department records show. And there’s no evidence in the records that the department took any enforcement action against the hotel for violating the residential hotel law. Haddadi told Capital & Main and ProPublica that the hotel hasn’t accepted long-term residents since 2019. He said he didn’t know if the hotel was violating the law but noted that the hotel’s management has asked the city to remove its residential designation. The H Hotel’s owner, Mike Barry, declined to answer questions, citing advice from his attorney.

When asked why the Housing Department hasn’t enforced the law against the H Hotel, Galardi noted that his inspector was barred from entering without an administrative warrant. Haddadi said the hotel had been instructed by its attorney not to let inspectors in. Galardi wrote, “Moving forward, staff will conduct further investigation regarding tourist units.”

Throughout the inspection records, a pattern emerged: Hotel owners or their attorneys could dodge city regulators simply by refusing to consent to inspections without a court order.

The department could obtain such warrants, but Galardi said that its inspectors have not secured them — to enter either the H Hotel or others whose owners have barred inspectors.

Even when city inspectors have attempted to enforce the law, their efforts have proved futile because they haven’t always followed up to ensure compliance. Between 2016 and 2018, L.A. housing inspectors ordered the owners of the Studio Lodge, Hyland Inn, Central Inn Motel and Top Hat Motel to either return their rooms to residential use or obtain the required clearances to convert them.

But after inspectors said they’d return to ensure the violations were corrected, attorney Frank Weiser, who represented the Hyland, the Central Inn and the Top Hat, sent letters to the Housing Department that said they would not be allowed to reenter without administrative warrants. Housing Department enforcement records show no evidence that inspectors obtained warrants — even though the hotels were also cited for fire safety and electrical issues that inspectors rated as “high severity” violations.

And until recently, travelers could still book rooms online at any of the three hotels.

The owner of the Central Inn and the manager of the Top Hat said they had recently begun providing short-term housing funded by local homelessness programs. But the Top Hat manager said the motel still does nightly rentals when there are vacancies, and both acknowledged they’d been offering daily rates until earlier this year. Neither hotel owner answered written questions about whether the nightly rentals violated the residential hotel law. The owner of the Studio Lodge didn’t return phone calls or emails seeking comment.

Weiser, who still represents the Hyland’s owner, said he thinks the hotel corrected its housing code violations. But he said of the residential hotel violations, “The bottom line: There was never any action taken by the city. I think that speaks for itself.”

Sharma, the law professor, who previously advised former L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti on housing policy, noted the residential hotel law allows the city attorney to seek court orders to stop building owners from renting to tourists.

“I think by even filing against a few buildings, it sends a message to the rest of the buildings that the city is watching,” she said. “That’s how enforcement works in larger scale.”

The residential hotel ordinance also required the Housing Department to file annual reports to the City Council and mayor, informing them of the total number of residential hotel units, any conversions or demolitions and the department’s enforcement activities. But in response to a public records request, the department told Capital & Main and ProPublica that it didn’t have any of the reports. The city clerk’s office said it has no record of receiving any, and Galardi said he didn’t think the reports were ever compiled.

Good, the Housing Department’s senior policy adviser, said that understaffing is an obstacle to enforcement, pointing out that a single inspector is assigned to all of the city’s residential hotels. “There are significant capacity issues,” he said.

The bleak contrast between the American’s trendy remodel and the city’s homelessness crisis can be seen on the surrounding streets. On one recent day, a man pushed a shopping cart full of plastic bags past the hotel’s sandwich board advertising rooms and suites. On another, a man covered head to toe in dirty blankets stood against a graffitied wall as a tour group admired the art behind him.

Tourists on an arts walk pass a man draped in blankets in the heart of the Arts District in April.

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As tourists spilled out of the American, many said they were shocked by the seemingly endless tents pitched on downtown sidewalks and were startled to learn that the American was supposed to be reserved for the city’s neediest residents.

“I don’t like to hear that,” said Britt Booram, a real estate agent from Indianapolis as she got into a black van after checking out of the hotel.

Galardi said Capital & Main and ProPublica’s reporting had “gotten the ball rolling” on another potential enforcement tool to shut down short-term rentals in residential hotels: the city’s 2018 Home-Sharing Ordinance, which regulates listings on sites like Airbnb. But it’s rarely been used in the past. The city has fined just two hotels, and the planning department issued warning letters to a third hotel in 2020.

Only one of the three has stopped accepting online bookings. The others continue to advertise residential hotel rooms to tourists.

A Los Angeles County grand jury has indicted Nick Reiner on murder charges in the killings of his parents, Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner, and adds the allegation that he was lying in wait before attacking them.

The grand jury, which had been meeting in secret, returned the indictment on July 20, and it was unsealed Wednesday, when 32-year-old Nick Reiner entered a not guilty plea.

Rob Reiner, a director, actor and Hollywood luminary, and his wife, a photographer and producer, were stabbed to death in their home in the upscale Brentwood section of Los Angeles on Dec. 14. Nick Reiner was arrested within hours and charged two days later.

Why the indictment matters

The grand jury indictment is a major step toward trial and allows prosecutors to skip California’s preliminary hearing process, where evidence is publicly aired.

Lying in wait means a suspect waited for or hid from victims in order to ambush them, and as an allegation it’s meant to show premeditation. A finding that he was lying in wait along with a murder conviction would make Reiner eligible for the death penalty, but prosecutors said they haven’t decided whether to seek it.

“This was a profound betrayal by someone who was loved and trusted by the very people he is accused of killing,” Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said in a statement. “We hope that by having a grand jury return an indictment in this case it will bring us one step closer to a trial and achieving justice.”

What does the indictment say?

Prosecutors have said nothing about possible motives, and leaks in the case have been virtually nonexistent on both sides.

The Los Angeles County chief medical examiner told The Associated Press he would like to make their autopsy reports public, but a court order has prevented him from doing so.

The unsealed indictment reveals few new details in a case that has been shrouded in secrecy. It does not explain how or why Reiner was lying in wait. Without elaborating, prosecutors have said since December that the parents were stabbed. The indictment includes a special allegation of use of a deadly weapon — a knife — that could also contribute to a stiffer sentence.

What about the trust funds?

The indictment comes as Reiner is seeking unpaid money from a trust his parents established for him, saying he needs it to help in his defense.

Reiner said in a court petition that the trustees who oversee the funds have denied them to him without legal justification. The money was to have gone to Nick Reiner even if his parents were alive, legal filings say. The petition says the trust has at least $1.5 million in assets, but trustees would not share the exact amount.

“Nick loved his parents, and he is devastated by their deaths. But the facts about what did and did not happen to them are not at issue,” the petition says.

He is seeking to hire back high-profile criminal defense attorney Alan Jackson, who initially represented him before Reiner’s siblings would no longer agree to fund his defense and a public defender took over.

A hearing on the petition is set for next week.

The LA County Public Defender’s Office, which is representing Reiner, declined to comment on the indictment.

Why is this process shrouded in secrecy?

California prosecutors can charge a defendant and take the case through a preliminary hearing — a sort of trial in miniature where evidence is publicly aired and a judge decides whether it should be sent to trial — as recently happened with singer D4vd.

Or they can use a grand jury to go through the process in secret. They can also publicly file charges and later seek a secret grand jury indictment, essentially creating a new version of the case, as happened here and in the Los Angeles prosecution of Harvey Weinstein.

Remembering Rob Reiner

Rob Reiner began as an actor, starring in the TV sitcom, “All in the Family,” as Michael “Meathead” Stivic, the liberal son-in-law to a much more conservative and bigoted Archie Bunker, played by Carroll O’Connor. Reiner won two Emmy Awards for the role, and last month got a posthumous Emmy nomination for his work as a guest star on “The Bear.”

He became a prolific director whose work included some of the most memorable and endlessly watchable movies of the 1980s and ’90s. His credits included “This is Spinal Tap,” “Stand By Me,” “A Few Good Men,” and “When Harry Met Sally…” during the production of which he met photographer Michele Singer. They wed soon after and were married for 36 years.

Nick Reiner was the second of the three children they had together. He and his father co-wrote the script for the 2015 film “Being Charlie,” which was partly based on the son’s teenage struggles with addiction and homelessness.

His older brother Jake Reiner wrote in April that the experience of losing his parents and having his brother at the center of it was “a living nightmare” that is “too devastating to comprehend.”

The City of L.A. is still on the hook for a potentially infinite amount of money if the 2028 Olympics and Paralympics are a financial failure.

But in the latest attempt to moderate that risk, the Los Angeles City Council voted 10-4 Wednesday to approve an overdue agreement with the private Olympic organizing committee LA28.

What to know about the agreement 

Matt Szabo, the City Administrative Officer who negotiated the agreement with LA28, spoke at Wednesday's council meeting.

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The deal lays out how LA28 will repay the city for services rendered during the Games, like traffic control. It establishes that the city will seek reimbursement for the cost of policing venues from the federal government, which is overseeing Olympics security.

The council also approved an amendment to a 2021 agreement between the city and LA28 that allows the city to tap an LA28 contingency fund to recoup security costs if the federal government doesn't cover those expenses.

Matt Szabo, the City Administrative Officer who negotiated the agreement with LA28 alongside the city's Chief Legislative Analyst Sharon Tso, acknowledged the agreement had big limitations. At the same time, he told the council Wednesday that he believed it was the best bet at protecting the city.

" This is not an agreement that is intended or even has the capability of eliminating risk that the city has agreed to take on," Szabo told the council. "The purpose is to limit the risk to the greatest extent possible. And we do believe that it achieves that."

Still, some in city government said the agreement doesn't go far enough to protect taxpayers.

"Despite being delivered months behind schedule, it still fails to establish a clear baseline of City services, financial protections for Los Angeles taxpayers, and accountability that the City needs to successfully host the Games," said Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who was one of four councilmembers to vote against the agreement, in a statement.

The agreement now heads to Mayor Karen Bass and Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson for a signature with LA28.

Concerns about the deal with security costs looming

A sticking point for dissenters is security costs — which are expected to be massive. Organizers and the city are counting on the federal government to pay for public safety at Olympic venues that are considered part of a "national special security event."

LA28 has not included security costs in its $7.1 billion budget — a fact that City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto criticized earlier this year.

The federal government has so far allocated $1 billion for security costs for the Olympics. Exactly where those federal funds will go has not yet been determined, and there's no guarantee they will cover all of L.A.'s policing costs.

Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell estimated LAPD personnel costs alone could exceed that total, putting the cost for his department at $1.15 billion in one budget memo issued earlier this year.

Protections for the city are limited

Under an agreement approved by the council Wednesday, if L.A. is not reimbursed by the federal government for all its eligible expenses, it could dip into LA28's contingency fund of $270 million before the private organizing committee could use that money for any legacy projects.

Here's the catch: that bucket will first be used for any costs that Olympics organizers still owe if they run out of revenue — meaning if the Olympics don't turn a profit, the city's access to that money will depend on how much is left for the taking.

" LA28 has no real incentive not to bankrupt us," said Chris Tyler with the community organization Strategic Actions for a Just Economy in public comment. "And if they come in under-fundraised and over-budget, taxpayers will be on the hook for billions of dollars potentially."

Szabo, the city administrative officer, said later in the council meeting that the Olympics turning a profit was in L.A. and LA28's best interest.

" We are joined at the hip here," he said. "They want a successful Olympics. They want to have a successful legacy for those '28 Olympics. We want a successful Olympics."

The agreement is late — and some still say it was rushed

At the Wednesday meeting, several city council members introduced six amendments to the agreement with LA28, aimed at clarifying or tightening LA28's obligation to the city.

All but one proposal was referred to committee for further discussion, and weren't included in the final agreement. Council President Harris-Dawson warned the council that approving amendments would send the city back into negotiations with LA28 that had already dragged on for years.

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who introduced two amendments seeking to regularly audit LA28's finances and guarantee reimbursements for unexpected "health and safety incidents" related to the Games, responded saying she hadn't had adequate time to consider the deal.

" I have Dodger Stadium in my district, which is an Olympic venue," she said. "So you're asking me to make a decision on something that's going to impact us for years to come, and particularly within the heart of my district, but I was only briefed two weeks ago."

City Controller Kenneth Mejia also criticized the process in an interview with LAist.

" Why are we rushing through this thing so fast?" he said, calling the deal "fiscally irresponsible" and asking: "Why are we not trying to maximize protections for the city today?"

Some, though, told the council they thought the agreement, which was due Oct. 1, 2025, was already too delayed.

" Every additional month of delay reduces the run[way] for detailed planning for our businesses," said Jacqueline Iniguez with the L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce in public comment. "The city and LA28 now need to move forward together quickly to keep the 2028 games on track." 

More big agreements ahead 

Jacie Prieto Lopez, a spokesperson for LA28, said Olympics organizers were proud of the final agreement, saying it "delivers on our commitment to execute a safe, secure, and fiscally responsible Games that benefit Los Angeles for decades to come."

The agreement approved by council Wednesday will serve as a master document as the city now goes on to execute "Venue Service Agreements" – even more specific agreements between LA28 and the city on what services will be provided at each venue in the city.

Other municipalities hosting Olympic venues will also have to execute their own agreements with LA28 on reimbursement.

How those agreements are inked will also have implications for the city of Los Angeles. It's the financial backer of the entire Olympics, whether the venues fall inside city boundaries or not.

On Wednesday morning, Los Angeles Unified School District students returned to campuses for the first day of school. For many, that meant coming back to schools located near a Boyle Heights warehouse that burned for more than a week in June.

The disaster forced the district to relocate summer programs at several nearby schools, including Christopher Dena Elementary. But on the morning of back-to-school, Maria Bravo said she was ready for her third-grade son and sixth-grade daughter to get back into Dena Elementary classrooms

“ I know that they're going to be in a good place here,” Bravo said. She said her kids needed a new routine after a summer spent largely indoors, trying to avoid the heat and the smell of rotting food wafting from the Lineage warehouse.

“They're going to find ways to keep them busy and active, and at the same time safe," Bravo said.

Principal Robert Salazar said classrooms have air purifiers and there’s a plan to bring students inside if rotting food smells interrupt recess or lunch.

“ It's like three plans — we have, A, B and C,” he said.

Karoline Linde, a 5th grade teacher at Dena Elementary, brought souvenirs back from a summer trip to Croatia to include in her Medieval Times unit. " You want the kids to succeed. You want the kids to do their best," Linde said. "That's my job as an educator. How am I gonna do that?"

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However, as has been true throughout the summer, the odor varied across the neighborhood.

At Eastman Elementary, Ivett Dominguez walked her child to Eastman Avenue Elementary School and told LAist the smell outside was “consistent and annoying,” but that she didn’t notice it inside her son’s classroom.

Other parents were more critical of the district’s decision to reopen the schools while the clean-up continued.

LAUSD Superintendent Andrés Chait visits a classroom at Belvedere Middle School the first day of the 2026-2027 school year.

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Andrés Chait, LAUSD’s superintendent, said preliminary attendance results showed about 92% of students enrolled at campuses near the burned warehouse came to the first day of school, exceeding the district’s overall attendance rate of 90%.

“[I have]  gratitude to our communities for having faith in us and in the measures that we took,” Chait said.

He said the district will take “corrective action” where lead and other toxins are found and that he’s directed his team to look into other ways for the district to advocate for climate justice.

“ Our primary role always is to provide education and academic advancement, but I think we can do more than that,” Chait said.

Some environmental health experts and advocates who reviewed the district’s testing results told LAist that school officials have more work to do on testing and cleaning at some campuses.

Environmental testing raises questions about long-term fire impact

District officials said environmental tests — which they released the day before school started — concluded the Boyle Heights warehouse fire did not result in widespread contamination at nearby campuses and affirmed the decision to reopen schools.

Soil tests found lead levels that exceeded California’s acceptable threshold at two elementary school campuses — Christopher Dena and City Terrace. The district said in its report that staff will evaluate whether more testing or cleanup at those sites is needed.

Carlos Torres, director of LAUSD’s Office of Environmental Health and Safety, said the front lawn at City Terrace and the tree wells at Dena, where elevated levels of lead were detected, have been fenced off.

At Christopher Dena Elementary in Boyle Heights, school officials fenced off a tree and a patch of soil where environmental testing found elevated levels of lead.

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Torres said the district doesn’t believe the lead is tied to the warehouse fire.

“Most likely this could be from things like lead-based paints from use in the past. It could be from agricultural use,” Torres told LAist on Tuesday. “There isn't such a thing as clean soil anywhere.”

The district said the levels of several other substances, including ammonia, formaldehyde and manganese, were low enough that they did not threaten the health of students or school staff.

Teacher Jose Salazar introduces Belvedere Middle School students to the different components of the career and technical education class which include engineering, child development and criminal justice on the first day of the 2026-2027 school year.

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Jill Johnston, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health at UC Irvine, agreed that elevated lead levels in the soil at nearby schools could have been present before the warehouse fire.

But she expressed concern about test results for ammonia at three schools within two miles of the Lineage warehouse: Eastman Avenue Early Education Center, Humphreys Avenue Elementary School and Stevenson College and Career Prep.

Two indoor samples and one outdoor sample from those campuses were found to have between 319 and 327 micrograms of ammonia per cubic meter.

“Ammonia is a respiratory irritant,” Johnston said. “It can affect lung function, particularly in kids… Breathing in ammonia, particularly at levels that are much higher than background concentrations, is something we want to try to avoid, especially for vulnerable kids.”

California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment sets a 200 microgram safety limit for chronic exposure to ammonia, meaning situations where people are breathing in the chemical compound continuously. District officials noted that the test results were far below the state’s 3,200 microgram limit for acute exposure, meaning about an hour or less.

Johnston said closing schools would have been a difficult decision for district officials. But she said additional scrutiny and monitoring at those three schools is warranted.

“If they're also kids from the neighborhood, they're being exposed at home,” she said. “It just builds this evidence that we've been observing over the last several weeks, that toxic chemicals associated with the activities at Lineage are getting into the community, and in this case, is getting inside the schools.”

East L.A. has a long history of pollution linked to nearby freeways and dense industrial development. In May, about 25,000 gallons of crude oil spilled into the streets after an underground pipe ruptured.

“This continues to remind us where our schools are located and how vulnerable our communities and schools are,” said Rocío Rivas, school Board vice president and representative for the neighborhood. “I think it's important to elevate the testing and continue to monitor regardless if there's a fire or not.”

The teachers union sent a letter to the superintendent on Aug. 6 with more than a dozen demands related to Boyle Heights schools, including additional environmental testing, heating, ventilation and cooling system upgrades.

“Fire-impacted school communities deserve more than assurances — they deserve an actionable plan that puts health and safety first,” wrote Gloria Martinez, president of United Teachers Los Angeles.

LAist reporter David Wagner contributed to this story.

With kids headed back to classrooms for the school year, environmental health officials with LAUSD say there is no significant health risk from air contamination for students in Boyle Heights and the surrounding neighborhoods.

Residents, though, continue to worry about the health effects of air pollution from the Lineage warehouse fire. They're still reporting headaches, nausea and difficulty breathing weeks after the fire was put out.

The fire began June 17 and burned for nearly a week, sending a plume of thick smoke into surrounding neighborhoods.

Then, after the fire was extinguished, tens of millions of pounds of refrigerated food stored in the massive warehouse rotted, sending foul odors and pests into the surrounding neighborhood. Lineage said 92% of the food had been removed as of Tuesday.

What's being measured

Much of the air quality data collected in the area after the fire comes from South Coast Air Quality Management District sensors located at Eastman Avenue Elementary School and Robert Louis Stevenson Middle School, both of which are less than a mile from the warehouse.

They take readings on an hourly basis and publish the data online.

Here's what these air quality monitors have been recording over the last few months:

• PM 2.5: The sensors at the two schools have been monitoring fine particulate matter since they were installed on June 19. They are able to pick up particles as small as 2.5 micrometers, or about 30 times smaller than a human hair. Particulate matter, in this case, was mostly associated with smoke generated while the fire was active.
• Methane: The sensors started measuring methane on July 9. Methane is a greenhouse gas that can be harmful to the environment and is only harmful to humans at extremely high concentrations. The sensors have picked up levels that are fairly typical for the region.
• Hydrogen sulfide: The sensors started measuring hydrogen sulfide on July 9. Hydrogen sulfide creates what’s often described as a “rotten egg” smell, and is the chemical that caused some of the stench created by the rotting food left behind after the fire. Still, scientists say just because people can smell it, that doesn’t mean the levels of hydrogen sulfide are high enough to cause harm. They say they haven’t seen huge peaks.
• Ammonia: The devices were not equipped with ammonia sensors until July 23. Like hydrogen sulfide, the chemical is also created by rotting food. Unlike hydrogen sulfide, ammonia was also used as a refrigerant at the facility. Ammonia levels have spiked repeatedly since the sensors went into use, with the most recent spike at the beginning of August. Scientists say ammonia exposure can have adverse health effects, especially on children and other vulnerable populations. Officials say levels are not consistently high enough to pose a risk.

What additional testing found

The Air Quality Management District also employed mobile monitoring to test test for several other compounds in neighborhoods near the fire immediately after it started.

While officials reported finding high levels of particulate matter, they reported other pollutants — including hydrogen fluoride and several toxic metals — to be mostly fall short of public healths standards that would raise concern. For example: Levels of bromine and chlorine while elevated stayed below the state’s short-term exposure threshold, which officials say is not unusual during structure fires.

The L.A. Unified School District also tested for other substances, including lead and formaldehyde, and says schools in the area are safe for students. At the same time, they flagged that lead levels at two schools are higher than California’s acceptable standard.

South Coast AQMD did not respond to LAist's questions before publication time.

Air quality monitors near the Lineage warehouse measure four main substances: particulate matter, methane, hydrogen sulfide and ammonia. But scientists say there could be other pollutants that aren't being picked up.

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Allen J. Schaben

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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

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Why ammonia is concerning 

Despite assertions from environmental health officials that the neighborhoods around the warehouse are now safe, some scientists and community members continue to worry about air pollution.

Jill Johnston, associate professor of Environmental and Occupational Health at UC Irvine, said the spikes reported in ammonia levels are particularly worrisome.

“Ammonia is an air toxicant. It's a respiratory irritant,” she said. “[It] can also cause eyes, nose, throat irritation, and suppression of your lung function.”

Johnston found that ammonia levels have been spiking ever since the sensors that pick up the chemical were installed in late July, and as recently as the last few weeks.

An analysis published Aug. 5 by the Community and Environment Research Lab at UC Irvine and East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice found high levels of ammonia in streets close to Lineage.

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UC Irvine

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Environmental health officials with LAUSD say the ammonia levels found at nearby schools were not persistent or widespread enough to amount to a health hazard.

Johnston stopped short of saying it’s definitely the cause of the symptoms local residents continue report, which include headaches, nausea and difficulty breathing.

“Those symptoms can come from a lot of different chemicals, so it's not like a linear correlation there,” Johnston said.

Still, she says there’s simply not enough understanding of how long-term ammonia exposure affects the human body, especially when it comes to children and other vulnerable populations.

Why it's hard to detect other pollutants

The ammonia could also be a sign of other contaminants that have yet to be tested.

“Ammonia may just be a marker of a whole mixture of pollutants coming from the site,” Johnston said. “We just totally don't know yet because those haven't been fully characterized.”

The bottom line is, Johnston says, air quality monitoring has its limits, and there is a lot that isn’t measured or understood when it comes to air pollution following industrial fires like the one at the Lineage warehouse in Boyle Heights.

The limitations go beyond industrial fires.

Scientists have developed technology that’s significantly more advanced than the standard sensors used by most air quality management officials for routine pollution monitoring. The more complex sensors can pick up a wider range of pollutants.

More advanced technology, however, is also more complicated to use, which limits its use in the field.

How to report an air quality issue

South Coast AQMD gives you three ways to file a complaint:

• Call 1-800-CUT-SMOG (1-800-288-7664)
• Visit www.AQMD.gov/Complaints
• Using the South Coast AQMD Mobile App

Be prepared to share:

• Date and time of what you experienced
• Type of air quality event (odors, dust, asbestos, smoke, etc.)
• Odor description (gas, chemical, rotten eggs or other familiar odor)
• Address or location of suspected source