Signing a lease to live at Centre Street Lofts was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. Good thing it'll be over in just a few months. I feel sorry for the poor bastards that purchased units in this building.
No wonder the landlord/owner of the unit I am renting pressed me into making a quick decision when I looked at it on a rainy Sunday morning. But as soon as the skies cleared, it began to dawn on my that I would regret my snap decision.
As it turns out, the bar located across Centre street - Godmother's Saloon - is a magnet for not only wannabe biker types who compete with each other to see whose bike is loudest. It's also a draw for real, live outlaw bikers. The notorious Mongols bike gang regularly patronizes this establishment.
Worse, even when the bikers aren't making a nuisance of themselves, Godmother's features live music anywhere from 3 to 6 nights per week. Starting as early as 5:00 PM and continuing to as late 1:00 AM, live bands play at extreme volume levels. And for whatever reason, the club persists in leaving their doors open to the street, so this music can be heard at significant volume levels for hundreds of feet in all direction.
The music is loud enough that it's often times necessary to shut the windows in my unit just to make it possible to watch TV or carry on a conversation. And when it comes to trying to sleep at any time before 1 in the morning? Forget it. I wear earplugs, keep a fan running to create some white noise, and I often end up using the air conditioner when it's not really necessary, because it's impossible to sleep with the windows open.
This egregious noise is a clear violation of Section 112.01 of the Los Angeles Municipal Code, which states in part,
(a) It shall be unlawful for any person within any zone of the City to use or operate any radio, musical instrument, phonograph, television receiver, or other machine or device for the producing, reproducing or amplification of the human voice, music, or any other sound, in such a manner, as to disturb the peace, quiet, and comfort of neighbor occupants or any reasonable person residing or working in the area.
So you'd think with a police station literally one block away, they'd have a word with the owner of the bar, if not cite him for violations of the code. But nope - the fix appears to be in on that one, and Godmother's violates applicable local law with seeming impunity.
I've tried calling and talking to the staff of the bar myself, but have gotten nowhere. They might shut the door, but within an hour, it's propped back open again by the patrons who sit just inside the door way, which is apparently the designated smoking area. They're part of the problem, too - gathering outside the door on the sidewalk, carrying on in loud, drunken conversation well into the early morning hours pretty much every night of the week.
Anyway, you get the picture. This would be a nice place to live, but the profit motivations of single business and the failure of the LAPD and LA Port Police to enforce the laws and ordinances of the city of Los Angeles make Centre Street Lofts unlivable in my perspective. I am counting the days until I can move out of this hellhole. read more
