‘Slap in the face’: LA mayor decries bid to rebuild burnt-out warehouse before cleanup is done

One month after a huge fire ravaged a Los Angeles warehouse and doomed neighbors to a persistent, thick stench of rotting food, the facility’s owners have filed applications to rebuild.That request to restore the warehouse – which residents called a “ticking bomb” after a similar fire at the building in 2024 – was publicly criticized by the Los Angeles mayor, Karen Bass, in a post on social media earlier this week.“I can’t believe they would even think about starting the rebuilding process while they haven’t cleaned up the mess they’ve created,” Bass said. “It’s a slap in the face to the families that are forced to live with the consequences of an irresponsible corporation’s actions every single day.”Applications filed earlier this week with the Los Angeles department of building and safety ask for permission to “repair and rebuild” the building to its “original, pre-fire condition”. The city has not yet approved or denied the permits.The mess left by a weeklong fire in June remains. Rats, flies and odors have shrouded the area, and local residents have equated the smell of 85m pounds of spoiled food to that of a “dead body”. A recent NBC investigation found that conditions at the warehouse could lead to the rapid population growth of a fly breed known to infect people.Lineage Logistics, the cold-storage company that operates the warehouse and is managing cleanup efforts, said on 25 July that food waste in the burned-out area of the warehouse had been cleared and is being moved offsite. Demolition of the remaining warehouse would begin this week, Lineage said.But the city, and the warehouse’s neighbors, say Lineage is not moving fast enough.The Los Angeles county department of public health said on Wednesday it would begin fining Lineage up to $2,000 a day if it did not resolve “underlying” problems at its facility.The department has already issued six separate citations in the last week over unsanitary conditions and pest control issues, amounting to $4,500 in fines against Lineage. In a 28 July inspection report, the city reported observing an “accumulation of decaying organic waste, sludge, and food residue” across the property and nearly 200 living or dead flies in that waste.“Our top priority right now is completing the cleanup as quickly and safely as possible,” a representative for Lineage said in a statement. “The application is for a permit to repair the damage from the fire, which was not caused by the cold storage operations at the facility. This is normal course in the repair process and will not impact or distract us from the important work of cleanup.”