Chino Hills Maternity Hotel Restraining Order

UPDATE, 18 January: Tomorrow's edition of the Champion reported that the court hearing held yesterday regarding the "Los Angeles Hermas Hotel" and requiring property owners Hai Yong Wu and Yi Wang to appear and explain why a temporary order closing the facility and prohibiting any further changes to the house ended without the owners making an appearance.  Wu was said to still be in China, so the new judge Keith Davis, granted a 30-day extension on the hearing, now scheduled for 19 February.

In last week's Champion, it was reported by reporter Marianne Napoles that a 27 December temporary restraining order, banning further construction and remodeling as well as operating of a hotel in violation of Chino Hills city codes, was issued by a county judge preventing the "maternity hotel" that has been operating on a hilltop house overlooking the east end of the Carbon Canyon corridor from continuing business.

Property owners Hai Yong Wu and Yi Wang were ordered to appear before the court this coming week, on 17 January, to contest the issuance of the injunction.  Meanwhile, Napoles noted that the residence in which the "Los Angeles Hermas Hotel" [it would be interesting, maybe, to know what "Hermas" refers to, given that its usual connotation is as a given name and there is an old Christian tale about a "Shepherd of Hermas"] had been operating has been vacant for several weeks.

A Frank Smith, Wu's representative was quoted by Napoles as saying that Wu was working with the City to address code violation issues and suggested that the house was actually in compliance with city codes because of its floor plan and that any work done did not require removal.  Rather, Smith claimed, he recommended vacating the structure because of the issue of inadequate septic system capacity. 

And, yet, if the maintenance of the fundamental floor plan alone is justifiable by Smith's interesting application of logic, then any alterations to the plan that overload the septic system's capacity is somehow logically disconnected even though the added bathrooms within the floor plan were connected to the overburdened septic tank?

For a 5 January Los Angeles Times article on this, click here.  Another Times piece on maternity hotels generally and referring to the Chino Hills example can be found here and there is a further link embedded in that article to a fuller version that appeared in the 3 January print edition.