Landlords Lose Bid to Challenge Tenant Harassment Law

By Jim Stebinger and Lookout Staff

Thursday, July 29 -- Two area landlords who are being sued by the city under Santa Monica's tenant harassment ordinance lost their bid Monday to have the ordinance declared unconstitutional.

Dep. City Atty. Adam Radinsky said the challenge by Ross Vaisburd and Daniel Smith is the third unsuccessful court challenge to the ordinance. Vaisburd and Smith, who are co-owners of a 20-unit apartment building on Sixth Street in Santa Monica, are defendants in a civil lawsuit filed by the city in Superior Court in April.

The two landlords filed a demurrer motion and a motion to strike challenging the harassment ordinance on fifteen different grounds. Among their arguments were claims that the law is unconstitutional and that jurisdiction is pre-empted by California law.

Superior Court Judge Valerie Baker, sitting in Santa Monica, disagreed. She issued an order on Monday denying the demurrer and the motion to strike in their entirety. Radinsky said the court order effectively rejects the landlords' claims.

Attorney Gordon P. Gitlen, who represented the defendants, called the city's harassment lawsuit "frivolous." Among the allegations, Gitlen said, was a claim that the defendants had "maliciously refused to speak" to the tenants.

"It's damned if you do, damned if you don't," Gitlen said.

Radinsky counters that Gitlen is only focusing on one of the more minor allegations, noting that the two landlords are accused of refusing to accept rent from a tenant, attempting to evict that tenant on grounds which they knew were invalid and personally harassing the tenant. According to Radinsky, the tenant being harassed was paying a rent-control determined rate less than one-fourth the rent some other tenants in the building were paying.

"What Mr. Gitlen is focusing on is one small allegation taken out of context," Radinsky said. "It was part of a behavior to force the tenant out."

Gitlen said he believes the city's lawsuit was filed in retaliation against the owners, whose company, Cabinda LLC, successfully obtained a court order last month striking some of the rent control board's regulations.

"They're trying to sue a landlord for going to court," Gitlen said. "That's pretty repugnant, even in Santa Monica."

Radinsky said Gitlen's allegation "makes no sense" because the harassment suit was filed before Cabinda won its case.

The two men have 20 days to answer the complaint as filed.