“Two years of hell”: Abandoned burger spot becomes neighborhood nuisance

Jorge Gallegos tried to ignore the banging outside of his Boyle Heights home during a Sunday night football game in 2022. For a moment, he thought it was the car stereo installers around the corner on Soto Street until he realized they were closed that day. 

He stepped out to see a figure holding a sledgehammer, throwing two by fours off the roof of the abandoned Tom’s Burgers next door. The homeowner suspected people had broken into the vacant building and were making holes in the roof, likely to ventilate the smoke from makeshift fires inside. 

The lumber was landing in Gallegos’ driveway, inches from his car and his windows. 

The incident marked the beginning of a years-long headache for Gallegos, 50, his family, and the community around the property on the northeast corner of 4th and Soto. 

The long-shuttered Tom’s Burgers at 320 S Soto had been broken into and was fostering an unsafe environment for the busy intersection. Encampments were forming both inside and outside the structure, and when a violent individual living on the site threatened his wife with violence, the 50-year-old tried to get the city to step in.

“I have called everyone I can. I called 211, 311, our Councilman, 911, police, and fire,” Gallegos listed off at a Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council meeting in late February. “No one cares. No one does anything. This has been going on, not days, not weeks, but months. It’s been two years of hell.”

After the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety failed to contact the owner about the nuisance property, Los Angeles Code Enforcement erected a chain-link fence in mid-March, which squatters easily pushed aside to access the building. Debris, including construction material and wood, likely from an attempted unauthorized renovation, sits collected in buckets inside. Mattresses are shoved into corners, and piles of clothing, bedding, furniture, and shopping carts are scattered throughout the interior. 

Gallegos was fed up with living on edge and disappointed with the haphazard fencing, which didn’t do much to dissuade people from hanging around Tom’s or his home. 

“Without wanting to, I became a Ring expert. I’ve got cameras everywhere. And then I have sensors everywhere,” Gallegos said, as he pointed to his front gate that notifies his phone if it’s opened. 

Before the pandemic, Gallegos said that the abandoned property was properly boarded up. But in 2021 and 2022, he noticed more unhoused people hanging around the property and saw more repeated break-ins. At one point, tents spilled from the building onto the sidewalk, impeding pedestrians and local Roosevelt students. 

The property’s story is complex, as is finding a solution to alleviate the threats to community safety and finding housing for the people living inside the gutted building. 

Records show the late Thomas Avlonitis owned the building, and when he passed, the estate of the owner opted to triple the monthly rent, according to Gallegos. Unable to pay what the owners were asking, Tom’s left the space in 2012, and the windows and doors were promptly boarded up. 

Over the last four years, however, the empty property has received more than 150 calls to 311, mostly to address graffiti on the structure. 

Several were complaints about illegal dumping, trash overflow, and a barricade being illegally removed. More recently, calls have been received reporting private property violations and homeless encampments around the building. 

Neighbors in crisis

This year, the impact of the nuisance property next door had a drastic effect on the Gallegos family. When it was time to renew his fire insurance coverage, his insurance company denied a fire protection plan, according to the homeowner. Gallegos tried AAA. During a property assessment, investigators noticed the property next door had evidence of recent fire damage inside. Gallegos said it impacted their decision to insure his home. 

“They said, ‘No, we can’t take the risk. We’re not going to give you insurance,’” Gallegos recalled. “We were all shocked. They denied it.”

Gallegos’ concern about possible fires spreading to his home led him and his brother to clean up debris around the building and even trim tree branches that got too close to the fire-prone structure. 

California Installs, the automotive stereo system installer that shares a parking lot with the former Tom’s, has also had to cope with the fallout of the crisis brewing next door. Owner Art Galvan said he and his team cleaned up hazards like plywood pieces that were at risk of toppling onto the sidewalk and have constantly swept debris back into the building. 

In the year between April 2023 and 2024, the Los Angeles Fire Department responded to four reports of illegal and rubbish fires. Galvan said there were more that were unreported, as he moved quickly to put several fires out himself.

“I just went in there to make sure that it wasn’t gonna catch fire,” Galvan said. “At one point, there was nobody there, and there was a bunch of smoke coming out of it so we had to go in there and extinguish the campfire that they had.”

The shop owner sounded frustrated with calling the LAPD, citing a slow response or sometimes none at all, despite a sign posted by the Department of Building and Safety prohibiting occupancy of the building. Galvan acknowledged the challenges that come with policing but saw police action like a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. 

“I know they have a tough job, too, because they come, and they’ll tell them to leave. But as soon as [the police] turn the corner, they’re back inside,” Galvan sighed. 

In the last year, LAPD responded to over 20 calls to the property, mostly for burglaries and trespassing inside the building.

Galvan recalled a period last fall when a vagrant was hanging out inside and around the building, occasionally threatening him and his customers with violence. 

“He was threatening to kill us,” Galvan remembered one of his customers saying. Galvan was also threatened by the same individual but walked away, understanding the aggressor was likely experiencing a mental episode. 

Gallegos, too, was losing hope that the nuisance next door would ever be remedied. “The mayor ain’t gonna see me. The cops don’t care about me,” Gallegos said with frustration in his voice. But his supervisor at work suggested that he might have better luck with his Councilman, Kevin de León of City District 14. 

Pete Brown, Communication Director for CD 14, said it’s difficult for the city to act quickly since it’s private property.  He said LA City Councilman Kevin de León’s office has been in correspondence with the Department of Building and Safety for months, but the case was turned over to Code Enforcement, then the Vacant Building & Abatement Bureau. 

According to Brown, Code Enforcement tried to contact the owners and issued an Order to Comply earlier this year due to hazardous conditions.

Now, the property’s case is in the hands of Gabriel Herrera, an inspector for the Vacant Building & Abatement Bureau with the Department of Building and Safety. The inspector could not be reached for comment. 

Abandoned properties are a city-wide issue

David Mansor, the broker for the realty company managing the property, said he and his client are frustrated with the rate of permitting required to allow the new tenant, a cell phone business, to renovate the space properly. 

“I mean, he has cameras, and he calls the police all the time, but the police don’t even want to respond anymore,” Mansor said on behalf of the owner. “And the tenant has boarded it up several times. I don’t know what else they can do.” 

Mansor sees vacant properties all across Los Angeles and believes the permitting and renovation processes need to be expedited.

“You see this all across LA when you’re dealing with distressed assets. With a lot of these properties, people are stuck at various points of the probate process.  When disposing of the property, it’s hard for them to lease it without everyone’s consent. Selling it, as well, becomes a challenge,” Mansor said. 

It’s difficult not to draw comparisons between the dilapidated ex-burger joint in Boyle Heights and the now vacant Oceanwide DTLA highrises that made national news for being plastered in graffiti. 

When properties sit empty, and the city struggles to repurpose spaces, the severity of homelessness and urban blight becomes even more apparent. 

Mansor, who has experience working with properties sheltering squatters or the unhoused, said the issue with people illegally occupying private property isn’t limited to Boyle Heights, but the city and police’s response to calls about public safety is. 

“It’s harder in Boyle Heights because the issue is so pervasive. If we get rid of one person, another person comes. Over there, the cops don’t do anything,” Mansor said, referring to Eastside communities. “The responses are so different depending on which jurisdiction you’re in.”

Finding solutions through the red tape

Desperate to think of any city-led effort to secure the property, Gallegos suggested that the Los Angeles Bureau of Street Lighting install a light on the northeast corner of the intersection to better illuminate the building at night and make it safer for students and people at the bus stop. 

“They could come in with a truck and a cherry picker, and in two hours, they could put one of those massive square lights in and point that light to this whole property. And that would help a lot,” Gallegos said. 

The homeowner admitted that because the building remains structurally sound, it could even be renovated into a restaurant or shop, but only if the owner made it more financially accessible to lease. 

“It’s still solid; it works. Just make the owner get rid of it or be reasonable. Lower the price down, and they will easily rent it to a restaurant, and that’s it. Or if that doesn’t happen, the city should make this solid all around,” Gallegos said, referring to the barricade he said was put up in about two hours. 

Galvan, who has shared a parking lot with the Tom’s for more than 30 years, suggested that overnight security may be necessary to secure the space until it’s properly renovated. Still, he has sympathy for those living inside of the building. 

“I feel bad for the people. I really don’t wish anything bad for them because I know they’re struggling with mental illness or whatever, but it gets bad, though. The situation gets bad,” he said. 

Ultimately, Gallegos believes the safety of the Roosevelt students who walk past the building and wait for their buses in the parking lot after school should be considered. 

“Make it safe for the public. If it catches fire, of course, my house is gone. Then I’m out of here. And then the stereo place is gone. Then they’re out of there, too,” Gallegos said. 

The next-door homeowner acknowledges some of the temporary solutions to the problem but is hoping for a quick and permanent fix. 

Though a timeline has not been set, the Department of Building and Safety issued a permit to renovate the building on April 22nd, with plans for a structural overhaul to come. 

“It’s affecting me the most. Before it was worse,” Gallegos said, acknowledging that the encampment spilling onto the sidewalk has since moved inside. “But how long will this last before it gets bad again? It gets good and then bad. Good, and then bad.”