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Standard LA Charged With Illegally Disposing Of Hazardous Waste

Where: 550 S. Flower St [map], Los Angeles, CA, United States

This is what happens when you cut out early for the weekend--a hip hotel gets charged with illegally disposing of hazardous waste.

While Andre Balazs might be the hottest hotelier around these days, something not so pretty was going down at the Standard Downtown LA.

Andre Balazs' hotel management company has been charged with one felony count of disposing hazardous waste without a permit, according to a federal complaint which made the news today. AB Hotels could be fined up to $500,000 if convicted. So what was the hotel doing with the hazardous waste? This:

The complaint alleges that hotel employees poured acid and chlorine down a roof drain beside the hotel pool at The Standard on Jan. 19. The chemicals snaked down to a street-level storm drain, and the fumes caused people to start vomiting at a subway station two blocks away.

"They thought initially it was a terrorist incident," said Johns. "You get a report of chlorine gas in the subway, and everyone starts thinking nerve gas a la Tokyo."

"We are sorry for this employee mistake involving diluted swimming pool chemicals," Nadine Johnson, a spokeswoman for The Standard, said in a statement. "We will continue to assist the government."

The complaint singles out a hotel supervisor who instructed an employee to run water down the drain as he pumped chemicals out of two 50-gallon tanks. The water supposedly was to used to not make the chemicals "so hazardous." Except people started vomiting in the subway. Hotel Hell indeed.