The course of true love has never run smoothly, and it's
running even rougher over on East Carrillo Street at a property owned by Santa
Barbara's infamous landlord Dario Pini. This is one of seven Pini-owned
properties now under court-appointed receivership, and it has the unfortunate
circumstance of at least three units with too many people living in them. That
means three of six people have to go.
Along with a litany of unsavory conditions like bedbugs, cockroaches, mold, and rotten walls, overcrowding is an illegal condition under attack in the city's attempt to restore Health & Safety Code order at Pini's properties. But at East Carrillo, the receiver cites as overcrowded just two people living in a couple of studios and in a one-bedroom having 64 square feet. Are they married? Are they cohabitating? Is one a minor? The last is a mystery that Judge Colleen Sterne has ordered the receiver to suss out to better understand just who will be getting a 60-day notice to vacate. But even if any are a loving couple, they're still one too many persons to occupy the premises, at least under the city's building code.
They and 273 other people at Pini's six other properties
under repair by receiver Bill Hoffman are said to inhabit overcrowded
apartments — some with as many as 10 people in a two-bedroom and six people in
a studio apartment. As the construction work to make all the units livable
again gets underway, each will in turn get 60-day notices to either reduce
their numbers or leave. Already, on West Arrellaga and West Mission — the first
of Pini's properties to be renovated — 60-day notices were served on eight
apartments. Two sets of tenants reduced their "crowd" to the allowed
number, and one family moved.