STUDIO CITY : Community Pressure May Close Facility

With the backing of a freshman state assemblyman, police and neighbors have launched a campaign to close a Studio City home for mentally handicapped adults, claiming the facility draws prostitutes, drug dealers, vandals and other criminals.

Ventura Villa Inc. already operates under a probationary license and was cited earlier this year for several violations of state codes before Assemblyman Wally Knox (D-Los Angeles) demanded this week that the facility be shut down.

“The Ventura Villa is causing extreme problems for this previously quiet neighborhood,” Knox wrote to Eloise Anderson, head of the state Department of Social Services. “Numerous constituents have contacted me to strongly complain about such outrageous activities as public sexual activity and trespassing on residents’ property, public drug use and sales, petty theft and loud obscenities.”

The campaign to shut down Ventura Villa Inc. has perplexed Soviet emigre Konstantin Goldenberg, who bought the Ventura Boulevard facility in 1993. Goldenberg admitted that the facility had been a draw for criminals and transients--as well as a public eyesore--when he took it over.

But, he said, he has since made strides to upgrade the building and weed out troublemaking clients. Neighbors agree, but said the improvements came too late.

“I feel bad for Konstantin,” said Brent Seltzer, a member of the local Neighborhood Watch who has been leading the campaign against him. “He’s been pretty good, but he should not have been there in the first place.”

Los Angeles Police Officer Jim O’Reilly, the senior officer for the neighborhood, said there have been hundreds of complaints from neighbors, including allegations of defecation in the street, cars broken into and vandalized, people swimming in a residential pool and children being followed.

“With a lot of this stuff, by the time the police get there the people are gone,” O’Reilly said. Only one resident has been arrested since January when O’Reilly he took over the neighborhood, he said. In that case, a client stole an employee’s car, O’Reilly said.

Goldenberg denied that his clients are responsible. Those who are found to be using drugs or alcohol are transferred to other facilities after they are caught, he said. When he first bought the facility, he had to remove about 50 clients who were involved in criminal activity or who had criminal records.

Gayle Johnson, a spokeswoman for Los Angeles City Councilman John Ferraro, said her boss has received many complaints about the facility in the past, but only one in the last year. “In the last year or so, complaints have dropped off dramatically,” Johnson said.