Armed with inspection warrants authorizing the use of force, a team of about 20 inspectors from five City Hall departments, including police, launched a sweep of landlord Dario Pini’s rental properties early Tuesday morning in search of living conditions so unsafe they’d persuade a judge to put them in the hands of a court-ordered receiver. Such a receiver would be authorized to collect rents and to borrow money using Pini’s properties as collateral in order to generate the funds to make the repairs City Hall insists are necessary.
City Attorney Ariel Calonne said the special inspections of 164 units became necessary after years of court-ordered code-compliance sessions between Pini and Special Master (an ad hoc officer of the court) Stan Roden failed to achieve habitability improvements. One of the largest landlords in Santa Barbara County, Pini — famous for renting to low-income and immigrant tenants — has long been the focus of intense enforcement actions. According to City Hall, he packs far more tenants into his properties than the places can reasonably accommodate, creating unsafe living conditions for his renters and blight for his neighbors. “We are no longer content to rely on Mr. Pini’s promises to clean up his properties,” Calonne said. “Given his track record, he no longer warrants such trust.”
Pini protested all his properties are up to code and that he’s responded to every notice of violation by making the required repairs. “This is communistic,” he declared. “This is communism masquerading under the guise of democracy.” Pini said city residents would be better served if the enforcement energies of City Hall were focused on “all the heroin washing through town.”