For a while now, Stanton officials have been adopting a host of policies aimed at cracking down on businesses and properties they say have become a hub for drugs, prostitution and other illegal activity.
In recent years, they have tightened regulations on abandoned buildings and motels, had a moratorium on new smoke shops, banned the sale of kratom and the sale of nitrous oxide – whippets – for recreational use while declaring homelessness a local crisis.
Now, city council members are amending their business license rules to include a three year cooling off period when a business owner has his license denied or revoked, banning the same type of business or similar businesses from opening up shop at that location.
“The ‘cooling off’ period allows the City to ensure that business locations where illegal activity took place do not become a “hot spot” for repeated activity,” reads a city staff report.
At last week’s meeting, Stanton council members voted unanimously to overhaul rules on denying, suspending or revoking a business license as well as streamline the city’s appeals hearing process with little discussion.
Under the changes, the assistant city manager would make the decision on revoking a license while the City Manager Hannah Shin-Heydorn or her designee would serve as the hearing officer for any appeals.
Crystal Landavazo, the city’s community and economic development director, said a similar three-year ban has been in effect on business owners who had their licenses revoked and try to get a new license for the same or similar type of establishment they had.
She also said some of those business owners sell their stores to a different owner to run it the same way.
“Because we do currently have that provision in place for revoked licenses, it has allowed us to prevent that same business from starting over after such an investment has gone in to remove the nuisance business,” she said at the Sept. 22 meeting.
City Attorney HongDao Nguyen said for roughly the past year the city revoked licenses from businesses engaging in “illegal conduct, illegal adult activity, selling illegal tobacco or other drug-related paraphernalia.
Landavazo said the changes will help businesses located next to problematic shops in local plazas from repeatedly having nuisance neighbors.
“What we’re trying to do with this is just make it consistent across the board, and we’re trying to make sure that when we do take such a severe action, that it does have a lasting benefit to that center that it was previously located in,” she said.
“Sometimes when you have a bad operator, it attracts other bad operators.”
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org
