A day after federal and local agencies descended on the MacArthur Park area and carried out a sweeping operation targeting what prosecutors described as an “open-air drug market,” the owner of a nearby deli known for its pastrami sandwiches voiced support for continued cleanup efforts and criticized policies he said encourage drug use in the neighborhood.
Video from the scene Wednesday in the Westlake District west of downtown Los Angeles showed numerous law enforcement vehicles and an unknown number of officers taking part in “Operation Free MacArthur Park.”
Norm Langer, owner of Langer’s Deli and son of its founder, whose restaurant sits across the street from the park, addressed reporters Thursday while calling on Mayor Karen Bass and city officials to cancel a city contract approving the distribution of needles and drug pipes in the area.
“All we are doing by giving out needles is number one attracting more people than we didn’t have before,” Langer said. “And number two, fighting a never-ending battle of helping people shoot up. We need to get them help, not needles, not more drugs.”
Langer is a second-generation owner of the deli, which has been an institution at the location at 704 S. Alvarado Street for nearly 80 years after being opened by his father, Albert J. Langer.
The raid was spread across multiple streets adjacent to the park near Wilshire Boulevard and Sixth Street.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said the operation was designed to “liberate the park from an open-air drug market that’s proliferated here for too long.”
Essayli said a total of 25 arrest warrants were being served during the operation, along with nine search warrants — six of which targeted businesses across from the park. He said operators of the large-scale drug operations were “storing and stashing” drugs at storefronts near the park.
He said 18 defendants were arrested Wednesday, including a man and woman in South Los Angeles who are believed to be the main suppliers of fentanyl and methamphetamine in MacArthur Park. Seven defendants are considered fugitives.
At one defendant’s Calabasas residence, law enforcement seized nearly 40 pounds of fentanyl, officials said.
Los Angeles Police Department officers and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents took part in the operation.
“For far too long, MacArthur Park has been plagued by drug addiction, crime, and despair,” Anthony Chrysanthis, special agent in charge for the DEA’s Los Angeles bureau, said in a statement Wednesday.
“Today’s operation is only one step, taken by a handful of agencies working hard to alleviate the anguish and sense of hopelessness burdening MacArthur Park, local businesses, and the surrounding neighborhood. While this is a drug enforcement operation, it is also an effort to restore safety and wellness, and to return MacArthur Park back to the community.”
According to an affidavit attached to a criminal complaint, Mallaly Moreno-Lopez, 31, and her boyfriend, Jackson Tarfur, 28, both of the Westmont area of South Los Angeles, “serve as … one of the main sources of supply of fentanyl powder and methamphetamine distributed in the Alvarado Corridor and MacArthur Park, generally on behalf of the 18th Street Gang.”
Federal prosecutors contend that Moreno-Lopez and Tarfur hand-delivered narcotics to the Alvarado Corridor near MacArthur Park for stashing in storefronts and subsequent distribution to street-level drug dealers. Moreno-Lopez and Tarfur allegedly used their Westmont residence as a stash location for illegal drugs prior to delivering them to MacArthur Park.
Authorities said the park and the immediate surrounding area are part of heavily contested gang territory.
Law enforcement officials also identified Yolanda Iriarte-Avila, 40, of Calabasas, as a source of supply of methamphetamine for Moreno-Lopez, via Iriarte-Avila’s boyfriend, Jesus Morales-Landel, 33, of the Exposition Park area of South Los Angeles, who is a street-level drug dealer in the MacArthur Park area, prosecutors allege.
Iriarte-Avila allegedly uses her residence as a stash location for subsequent drug distribution.
The complaint affidavit alleges 27 separate drug deals of fentanyl and methamphetamine from March 9 to April 15 in and around the MacArthur Park area.
If convicted, Moreno-Lopez, Tarfur, Iriarte-Avila and Morales-Landel would face a sentence of 10 years to life imprisonment. The remaining defendants each would face up to 20 years in federal prison, prosecutors noted.
“You have to go after the people selling the drugs on these streets, because you can see the consequences,” Essayli said. “MacArthur Park should be for families, should be for residents of Los Angeles, not for drug dealers and gangsters. So, we’re here to liberate it.”