{"id":412457,"date":"2026-07-26T00:41:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T00:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/412457\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T00:41:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T00:41:09","slug":"owners-of-fire-damaged-los-angeles-warehouse-fined-for-flies-rotting-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/412457\/","title":{"rendered":"Owners of Fire-Damaged Los Angeles Warehouse Fined For Flies, Rotting Food"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health\u00a0has fined\u00a0Lineage Logistics\u00a0for what it called “unsanitary and nuisance” conditions at the company’s fire-damaged\u00a0Boyle Heights\u00a0warehouse<\/a>, where residents have for weeks faced rats, swarms of flies and the smell of rotting food.<\/p>\n

The agency, which issued its first citation Thursday, is requiring that the company remove the approximately 85 million pounds of food rotting inside the warehouse, eliminate all fly breeding sources, clean affected areas, implement vector-control measures and take action to stop flies from moving into nearby neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

The citation fined Lineage the maximum $500, according to a statement from the public health department. Fines will be issued per day until the violations are fixed, and additional penalties could be added if the company doesn’t come into compliance.<\/p>\n

In a statement, a spokesperson for Lineage said the citations were due to the enormity of the cleanup effort.<\/p>\n

“The citations reflect the reality of what we’re dealing with, not a lack of urgency or commitment on our part,” the statement read. “Cleaning up a site with this much food waste is an enormous undertaking, and we understand why regulators are watching closely \u2014 we would expect nothing less.”<\/p>\n

The L.A. County public health department issued the fines following an initial inspection of the facility\u00a0July 15\u00a0and a follow-up a week later, officials said in a statement.<\/p>\n

During the second inspection, inspectors found decaying organic waste, wastewater, food residue, unsanitary conditions that allowed the breeding of flies, as well as live and dead flies along the northern perimeter of the warehouse.<\/p>\n

Fly larvae were also seen on exterior plastic sheeting and the sidewalk on the north side of the damaged building.<\/p>\n

Inspectors are monitoring corrective actions and conducting regular inspections for compliance, according to the public health department.<\/p>\n

The fines come a month after firefighters declared\u00a0an official knockdown<\/a>\u00a0of the stubborn warehouse blaze, which sent thick smoke into the surrounding neighborhoods and across\u00a0Southern California.<\/p>\n

The fire also left the company with the monumental task of removing approximately 85 million pounds of food, including meat, that had been kept inside the cold-storage warehouse. At a town hall meeting, Lineage Chief Operating Officer\u00a0Jeff Rivera\u00a0said cleanup of the site<\/a>\u00a0began\u00a0July 6.<\/p>\n

But in the weeks since, the stench of rotting food has drifted into nearby neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

Residents told The\u00a0Times\u00a0<\/a>they’ve seen rats running in and out of the warehouse, and large green and blue flies have swarmed into the neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Many residents say they have refused to turn on their air conditioning units or open their windows and doors during\u00a0the recent heat wave<\/a>\u00a0for fear that it would draw in the fetid stench of rotting food. Others have expressed concerns that swarms of flies might get into their homes.<\/p>\n

Officials with Lineage said the cleanup is ongoing.<\/p>\n

“We are working around the clock on odor control, pest control and the removal of food waste, and we will not stop until the site is clean and the community can move forward,” a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

As part of that work, the company told the\u00a0Department of Public Health\u00a0in a letter dated Tuesday that it had installed up to 118 exterior fly bait stations and 130 fly bag control devices, and targeted specific locations around the warehouse to reduce the number of flies and prevent them from migrating into surrounding neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

About 350 Zevo fly traps were delivered and distributed, and another 800 were expected to arrive this week and will be distributed directly to residents, according to the letter, a copy of which was reviewed by The\u00a0Times.<\/p>\n

Lineage has previously said it would commit to\u00a0an order<\/a>\u00a0issued by Mayor\u00a0Karen Bass\u00a0that the millions of pounds of food be removed within 45 days.<\/p>\n

With the deadline approaching, Lineage as of Friday had removed 1,395 truck loads \u2014 an estimated 6,399 tons \u2014 of waste from the warehouse,\u00a0according to an online tracker\u00a0<\/a>from the company.<\/p>\n

The fines from the county’s\u00a0Department of Public Health\u00a0also come about a week after air quality regulators issued a series of violations due to the odor coming from the facility.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0South Coast Air Quality Management District\u00a0issued six notices of violations<\/a>\u00a0to the company and, on\u00a0July 17, sent a demand letter instructing Lineage to take additional steps to mitigate the odor, including using odor neutralizers on trucks transporting waste, conducting daily surface scrubbing of waste loading areas and sealing decomposing food inside the building before loading it into trucks.<\/p>\n

The company responded to the AQMD on Monday, saying it had already implemented such measures or was in the process of doing so. For example, the company has surrounded the building with odor control sprayers, applied odor neutralizer to the waste multiple times a day, and wrapped the building where possible to contain the smell, according to a statement.<\/p>\n

But in its letter, the company did push back against some of the suggested measures. Placing food waste in sealed containers inside the building before removal, for instance, would significantly extend the time necessary to clean up the entire site, the company argued.<\/p>\n

“Requiring this of Lineage could add several months to the removal effort, during which time-period odors will likely persist,” according to the letter, a copy of which was reviewed by The\u00a0Times.<\/p>\n

This story originally appeared in\u00a0Los Angeles Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a92026 Los Angeles Times. Visit\u00a0latimes.com<\/a>. Distributed by\u00a0Tribune Content Agency, LLC.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health\u00a0has fined\u00a0Lineage Logistics\u00a0for what it called “unsanitary and nuisance” conditions at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48,52,51,47,50,49],"class_list":["post-412457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}