A fed-up LA landlord is telling a DSA-backed councilwoman to clean up her zombie drug den — blasting the fentanyl-soaked collapse of MacArthur Park as a policy failure that’s wrecking public safety and slowly strangling the working-class businesses trapped around it.
John Alle, a longtime landlord whose buildings sit directly across from the park and on nearby blocks, says the policy failures have turned his tenants into collateral damage in the very heart of Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez’s district.
“Anti-police Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez is the poster child of a bloated government machine with no accountability and no realistic solutions,” Alle told The Post.
“She needs to clean up the mess in MacArthur Park,” Alle said. “People who make messes don’t clean them up — they leave others to deal with the damage.”
Over the past two weeks, reporters from the California Post repeatedly entered MacArthur Park to assess conditions firsthand.
What we found was a park in visible decline: open-air drug use in broad daylight, people smoking from glass pipes on benches, hand-to-hand drug deals, encampments spreading across walkways, discarded paraphernalia, vandalized fixtures and trash-strewn paths.
Alle says he has repeatedly reached out to Councilwoman Hernandez for help, sounding the alarm as conditions deteriorated, only to be met with silence.
So have her constituents.
And, so has The Post. We contacted Hernandez at least 15 times via email, phone calls, and public information officers requesting comment or an interview. There was no response.
That silence broke only this weekend — not through her office, but on Instagram.
After a local blogger reposted a New York Post article criticizing Hernandez’s absence from community forums and deteriorating conditions at MacArthur Park, the councilmember sent a direct message accusing the blogger of sharing “fat-phobic” and “trans-phobic” content.
Screenshots reviewed by The Post show Hernandez writing: “It’s a damn shame that you are sharing this… If you’re cool with that, it shows me exactly who you are.”
The article by The Post focused on public safety, business impacts, and debate absences — not gender identity or body image. Community members who reviewed the exchange described it as retaliatory, another example, they say, of private social-media responses instead of public engagement.
Beyond the park’s borders, the damage radiates outward.
Business owners report smashed security gates, shattered storefront windows, stolen cash registers, graffiti tagging, and repeated overnight break-ins that have become routine.
Pastor Julio Fundetes has led Ministerio Impacto De Dios Bajo Su Presencia for a decade. The church sits just down the block from the park. He says the last two years have turned his block into a war zone.
Broken glass is routine. Graffiti never stops. People drink and use drugs outside the church. Unhoused individuals sleep in the doorway.
“I move them along,” Fundetes said. “They come right back.”
He now spends about $400 a week to keep the outside of the church clean — $200 per power wash — plus another $120 to cover graffiti. Evening services are gone.
“We have kids,” Fundetes said. Sundays once ended with children playing in the park after church. “That’s over.”
A few blocks away, fear has reshaped daily life behind locked doors.
For 36 years, Ruby Aparicio has worked out of the same building, serving the same neighborhood. Now she barely recognizes it.
“After COVID, everything changed,” Aparicio said. “The homelessness got worse. The neighborhood is nothing like before.”
Aparicio owns Ruby Aparicio Travel, a small, family-run office just up the street. One coworker has had his catalytic converter stolen twice — each theft costing about $1,500.
Customers are afraid to come inside. Many now handle business by phone. Others have stopped coming altogether.
“I get scared,” Aparicio said. “Our customers get scared.”
The office used to close at 6 p.m. Now it shuts down at 5.
“It’s not safe,” she said.
Meanwhile, Alle says business owners are still waiting.
“The residents deserve better from the woman who cannot make the park safe. “
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