Silver Lake auto shops charged with illegal street parking

Two Silver Lake automobile fix retailers are going through misdemeanor criminal rates, accused of illegally parking luxury autos in spots intended for community residents, Los Angeles metropolis officers stated.

In a complaint filed Tuesday in L.A. County Excellent Court, Town Atty. Mike Feuer accused the two stores — Hi Tech Automotive and Chic Silverlake — of unlawful street parking and storage of quite a few automobiles alongside the 4000 block of Fountain Avenue.

The criticism names residence entrepreneurs Grigor Bakchajian, Arusiak Karadanaian and Vasken Bedirian. Bakchajian operates both of those corporations, according to the complaint. Attempts to access the proprietors Wednesday were unsuccessful, and messages remaining with equally outlets ended up not instantly returned.

The rates came right after a KNBC-Television set Channel 4 investigative report spotted store workers parking the cars in the coveted neighborhood spots — a zoning violation underneath the city’s municipal code, which prohibits repair service outlets from parking motor vehicles exterior their heaps or approved storage yards.

6 Porsches, a few Ferraris and a Dodge Viper ended up amongst the cars parked along Fountain Avenue when allegedly in the shops’ possession, court docket files say. The stretch is a hectic thoroughfare in the community.

“It’s untenable that community people have experienced for so long for the reason that these automobile restore retailers allegedly just take up scarce general public parking areas,” Feuer stated. “That’s why we are having motion and submitting these fees.”

KNBC, which commenced its investigation right after acquiring an electronic mail from Silver Lake resident Brian Behrend, also described that Vary Rovers, Mercedes-Benzes and Maseratis were clogging residential streets close by.

Reached by cellular phone Wednesday, Behrend, 51, said that he has lived about two blocks from Hi Tech for 20 many years and that he has been annoyed by traces of exotic and highly-priced vehicles parked on his street for all of those people two many years.

“It was just the sheer variety of automobiles on the avenue,” he mentioned. “They really don’t conceal it, you can see mechanics parking autos there and then they just sit on the avenue and moved back again and forth for road cleansing. It is not appropriate.”

He explained he arrived at out to the information outlet soon after decades of sending letters and emails to council members and town departments to handle the situation, all to no avail. Though he was “happy and elated” that officials were being at last getting motion, he also remained guarded in excess of no matter whether nearly anything will change.

“It’s nice to contribute to the neighborhood in a way that, if everything ever arrives of this, would seem like constructive matters are taking place,” Behrend mentioned. “But I’m variety of outdated and jaded, I’ll believe that it when I see it.”

Rob Wilcox, a spokesman for Feuer, claimed the incident isn’t isolated to Silver Lake and included that the city attorney’s office environment will continue on to do the job with metropolis organizations to address similar complications in L.A.

In full, the shop entrepreneurs were billed with 11 zoning violations as properly as two violations for failing to comply with the city’s orders to discontinue the illegal parking and storage of the cars.

Every charge carries a maximum sentence of 6 months in jail, a good of $1,000, or equally, Wilcox mentioned.