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After four years, Teri Tan recites it like a shopworn prayer.
“5624356711,” she recounted. “It’s programmed in my brain.”
The nine digits are to the dispatch line at the Long Beach Police Department, a number she phones five to seven times a week.
She likely wouldn’t call at all if it weren’t for the three buildings across the street. Spanning the block of Pine Avenue between Ninth and Tenth Street, each has sold or been left abandoned since the pandemic.
In the absence of ownership, the hollowed-out trio has invited fires, vagrancy and crime that occasionally extends onto Tan’s pediatric clinic.
It’s become such a nuisance for the clinic’s staff that two nurses have said they plan to quit, for fear of their safety. One gave her an ultimatum — if things don’t improve by next spring, she’s gone. “I can’t do this anymore,” Tan said. “It’s wearing us down, day after day.”
Yet on Monday, spring came early, with a bulldozer. Following a structure fire that tore open the roof and left one wall leaning, city crews dozed the southernmost structure.
Then the Long Beach City Council unanimously told department leaders on Tuesday to return in 60 days with tougher rules on property owners who cannot be found or willfully neglect their lot.
In a staff report prepared ahead of the meeting, council staff labeled the city’s municipal code as vastly outdated and “insufficient,” and has led to a spike in “nuisance and criminal activity” as well as “dozens of fires” in recent years.
Depending on the severity of the problems and the willingness of the property owners to cooperate, officials wrote they were open to stricter fines, fewer loopholes, criminal charges, or, as a last resort, an easier path to a building’s demolition.
“Time and time again what I hear is the serious impacts that nuisance properties and vacant storefronts have on the quality of life of our neighbors,” said Councilmember Mary Zendejas, who authored the item. “Being a property owner comes with benefits but also responsibilities.”
For Tan, the responsibility routinely falls on her. Every week, she pays to have the adjacent parking lot swept and hosed. But garbage fires have been rampant, ruining their last dumpster and scorching the bush bed that abuts the property.
She points to a red chair overturned in the alley. “If I call the Clean Team or Go Long Beach, if we’re lucky, they’ll come and pick it up,” Tan said.
But the issue is not exclusive to Pine Avenue, Downtown or Uptown. Councilmember Megan Kerr made the point at the meeting that each member on the dais could probably name “at least one or two properties in their district” that are abandoned. Residents chimed in as well.
Leanna Noble, who spoke on behalf of the North Pine Neighborhood Association, said she knows of a dozen or so buildings.
“I’d be willing to bet my Social Security check that not a damn one of those abandoned buildings, nor the vacant lots, are owned by a resident of Long Beach,” Noble said.
Resident Sandy Devich said squatters have taken over the vacant home next to her sister’s place in Rose Park South. Or at least, the crawl space underneath. “We just saw two tonight, when we were leaving the house,” she said, adding she also saw several lit candles a few feet from the home’s water heater. “We hope to goodness there’s no gas on in the house.”
According to Development Services Director Christopher Koontz, there are at least 280 abandoned lots and more than 200 vacant buildings in Long Beach.
About 10% of those, he said, make up the problem, either through unpaid citations or payment without abating the property — mowing the grass, buying new locks or boarding windows.
“We’ve had buildings that have been broken into six times in a row, and there’s been fires. …” Koontz said. “Trespassers will start fires or will require medical care, and the Fire Department responds each and every time. That’s an enormous drain.”
Under current rules, when a nuisance property is sold in Long Beach, its citations don’t follow it — a loophole commonly taken advantage of, Koontz said. One proposed fix would tack violations to the title, rendering it ineligible for sale or refinancing until it’s resolved.
While it’s “not an epidemic,” Koontz continued, it is a culture of abandon that has spread in the years following the pandemic. “I couldn’t tell you why or what changed, but this issue has definitely emerged forcefully,” he added.
Unable to provide an exact count, Fire Captain Jack Crabtree said Wednesday that vacant buildings pose “a significant hazard” to firefighters.
“These structures are often boarded up with unknown hazards and illegal modifications,” Crabtree wrote. “Some of these hazards could be: illegal storage of flammable or combustible materials, structural modifications that could compromise the integrity of the building, undetermined life hazards and illegal access to utilities. All of these challenges pose a significant risk to our firefighters when responding to emergency calls for service.”
The newly proposed rules, Koontz said, may also make it easier to bulldoze nuisance properties. Due to a need to demonstrate “imminent danger,” the city has demolished only one building this year.
The recently dozed building opposite the clinic, for example, has been slapped with at least six citations and hosted several fires since it became abandoned.
That high bar to justify demolition is what allows the next-door building, the former Queen Beach Printers shop, to remain standing despite numerous citations and several fires — including one last year that resulted in someone’s death.
“It should be a high standard, but I think we’ve maybe left the bar too high, and we need to make some slight adjustments there to get everyone to take better care of their property,” Koontz said. “But that’s the type of situation that I think the council member is trying to get at.”
While the fruits of Tuesday’s decision will not appear immediately, restoration may come soon for more of the tumbledown block on Pine.
Following a May 16 approval to the city’s Planning Commission, construction is pending for an eight-story apartment tower that will replace the former printer. As of Wednesday, developers are still reviewing construction plans and obtaining financing.