Wave Staff Report
LOS ANGELES — A group of City Council members held a news conference June 30 in support of the city’s first anti-harassment ordinance protecting commercial tenants.
Councilwoman Heather Hutt, Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson and Councilwomen Eunisses Hernandez and Ysabel Jurado are seeking to protect small business owners across the city from landlord harassment, intimidation and displacement.
Earlier, the City Council approved a motion directing city departments to develop recommendations for the city’s first commercial tenant anti-harassment ordinance.
The news conference featured testimonials from small business owners including Tyrei Lacey, owner of The District by GS, and Rosa Maria Marquez, owner of Rock Rose Gallery, along with Fernando Arviszu of Strategic Actions for a Just Economy. Their stories highlighted the urgent need for legislative protections that do not currently exist for commercial tenants in Los Angeles.
“For too long, small business owners in Los Angeles have had no recourse when faced with harassment or predatory tactics by landlords,” Hutt said. “The people who built this city deserve to stay in it. The commercial tenant anti-harassment ordinance is a critical step toward ensuring that longtime Angelenos and entrepreneurs are not priced out or pushed out of the communities they have served for years.”
“Our small businesses have survived one crisis after another, yet they have been left on their own when they’re harassed, intimidated, or pushed out through predatory practices,” Jurado said. “Right now, commercial tenants have little recourse when those tactics are used against them.
“This first-of-its-kind ordinance says that no neighborhood business should lose everything simply because it doesn’t have the resources to fight back. We can grow our economy without pushing out the people who have invested in our communities for generations. The future of Los Angeles can’t belong only to the people who can afford to buy it. It has to belong to the people who made this city what it is.”
Harris-Dawson framed the new small business tenant protections as a long-overdue shield for the city’s economic engine.
“In many cases, these small businesses invest everything they have into their businesses, and to have a situation where a landowner can take advantage of entrepreneurs and mom and pops, and just wipe them completely out — it is not fair to the business, the community, and the city of Los Angeles,” he said.
“Small businesses across Los Angeles deserve rights and protections, and the commercial tenant anti-harassment ordinance is a vital step in the right direction,” said Amy Chong, senior associate of policy for inclusive action for the city. “We’re proud to work alongside small business owners, advocates, and local leaders to fight against predatory business displacement and to ensure community businesses can remain essential pillars of our neighborhoods and local economies.”
“Public Counsel stands in strong support of local commercial protections for small business owners such as the proposed LA city commercial tenant anti-harassment ordinance,” said Ritu Mahajan Estes, directing attorney of Public Counsel. “As a provider of free legal services for business owners, we have seen firsthand how the lack of protections impacts not only business owners and their families but also the communities that depend on their vital goods and services.
“Our city and state need to do more to help these community pillars stay in place and thrive and we will do all we can to ensure that happens.”
“Landlord harassment is not an abstract issue — it is something our clients experience every day,” said Ramya Sinha, an attorney at Bet Tzedek. “Without clear protections, many small business owners are left with no meaningful way to defend themselves.
“This motion is essential to ensuring that commercial tenants have enforceable protections against harassment. Our clients, many of whom are legacy and immigrant-owned businesses that serve as cultural and economic cornerstones, deserve to operate free from coercion and abuse.”
Business owners who testified described experiences of sudden rent increases, intimidation, and a lack of any formal process to address disputes with landlords, conditions that have led to the closure of community-rooted businesses across the city. The ordinance would establish clear protections and remedies for commercial tenants facing such conduct.
Elected officials at the news conference underscored the broad, cross-district coalition backing the ordinance and called on the full City Council to advance the ordinance toward passage.
