South Bay Echo for Dec 10
City sues Hawthorne Mall owner, Torrance Police under investigation, local real estate firm to pay $3.5 million, and when Santa Claus is coming.
Hello friends… Welcome to the 15th edition of South Bay Echo, your source of local hometown news with a real estate angle.
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Hawthorne takes action against derelict mall
The Hawthorne Mall has been defunct for so long that few people even remember when it was an actual mall. Once the centerpiece of the city, these days the property on Hawthorne Boulevard just south of 120th Street serves as a makeshift garbage dump, part-time homeless shelter, occasional set of a dystopian horror movie and a full-time illegal parking rental business.
After roughly two decades like this, city officials are finally taking legal action against the mall’s owner M&A Gabaee. You may remember the company’s owner Armon Gabaee was arrested in 2018 on charges of bribing an LA County official for a lease agreement in Hawthorne.
Gabaee still awaits trial while the Hawthorne Mall continues to sit in limbo. Several proposed projects have come and gone along with some potential scams. Despite hundreds of administrative citations, the city was getting nowhere. Thus, the recent legal action.
“The City has worked for years with the owner to address these issues plaguing the community, yet it has been met with one broken promise after the other,” states City Attorney Robert Kim in a press release. “No one deserves to feel unsafe in their own home, and we will do what it takes to make this community feel safe again. This is about quality of life.”
Read more about the nuisance abatement lawsuit here.
Convictions reversed over racist texts
The news came as a shockwave across the South Bay this week when on Wednesday it was revealed the California Attorney General is investigating the Torrance Police Department over a series of racist text message exchanges between more than a dozen officers.
In some of the tweets officers joked about about using violence against suspects and mocked the idea that internal affairs might catch them. The probe comes just as the LA Times revealed the racist texts came to light during an ongoing LA County District Attorney investigation.
That investigation has already led to the dismissal of 85 criminal cases involving the officers implicated in the scandal, according to the Times. County prosecutors threw out 35 felony cases as of mid-November, and the Torrance city attorney’s office has dismissed an additional 50, the Times reported. And more could be coming.
This is not a good look for the Torrance Police, already under renewed scrutiny for the killing of Christopher DeAndre Mitchell and three other shootings. In August, DA George Gascon charged two Torrance officers with conspiracy and vandalism after they allegedly took part in spray painting a swastika on a car that was impounded.
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Wedgewood to pay $3.5 million fine for unlawful evictions
The Redondo Beach-based real estate firm Wedgewood has agreed to pay $3.5 million to settle a lawsuit with the state of California over its eviction practices, according to Attorney General Rob Bonta in a press conference Wednesday.
Wedgewood is the same firm that activists protested in December 2019 over its practices. At the time, a group of women in Northern California were fighting an eviction and I was there to cover the defiant actions of Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment. Turns out they were on to something.
When Santa Claus is coming
When I was a kid growing up in Redondo Beach there were few things as exciting as hearing the sirens and seeing the flashing lights around Christmas time and realizing that… OH MY GOD… Santa Claus is coming. We would grab our coats and run to the sidewalk just in time to visit with St. Nick and receive a candy cane.
Santa is already cruising the neighborhoods, but if you want to get a jump on his touring schedule for the next week then follow the links to the maps for Santa’s journey. Torrance, by the way, says it plans to hand out roughly 30,000 candy canes this year.
Santa will be in Redondo Beach through Dec. 16, Torrance through Dec. 17 and Manhattan Beach through Dec. 17. Each begins shortly after sunset.
That’s all for now. I hope you enjoyed this edition. As always, if you like it, please share it or leave a comment. And thanks for reading.
Thank you, David, for keeping the flame of knowledge and understanding burning through your insights and experience of this area. Always interesting information ℹ️ be well