Tutoring Center Seeks Business Permit After 9 Months Unlicensed

Parking availability has kept a South Diamond Bar tutoring center from receiving a business permit, but the center's owner said parking was not a problem during the nine months that the business operated unlicensed.

The city and the center's owner, Manikku Malraj, are currently working toward a solution that may require Malraj to set limits on the number of students that can be enrolled in the school at one time in order to curb parking demand.

In a proposal that the city's Planning Commission , Malraj said the center would host a maximum of 30 students per class for six class sessions.

But a city parking survey found that the volume of students would exceed the available parking at the center.

Malraj and landlord Ronald Albrecht disputed the numbers at the Planning Commission's May 10 meeting, however, and Malraj said that students most often take more than one class and that pickup and drop-off between sessions would be for much fewer than 30 students.

A solution proposed by Albrecht would limit the overall number of students enrolled at the center, while allowing 30 students per class session.

"If you have a limit of 60 students, it would be mathematically impossible to drop off 30 students and pick up 30 students because that would meet the limitation of students right there," Albrecht said. "If the limitation is 45-60, then it forces [Malraj] to sell to more parents for multiple sessions."

Community Development Director Greg Gubman said the overall student cap was a potential solution to the parking problem during the May 10 meeting before the commission voted to continue the issue to its June 14 meeting.

Operating Unlicensed

Gubman said the tutoring center was closed early this year after the city received a call from Los Angeles County Fire inspectors that the business was operating without proper permitting at its location on Pinefalls Avenue.

This history came as news to the planning commission during its May 10 meeting, where the owner and landlord of the property said a misunderstanding with the city led them to believe the tutoring center did not need additional approval.

"There was some misunderstanding," landlord Albrecht told the planning commission.

Malraj, who also owns a nearby Montessori School on the corner of Lycoming Street and Brea Canyon Road, said he understood the new tutoring center to be an expansion of the existing school across the street.

"The understanding was that we were expanding existing business," Malraj said, "and as such, I need not go for the conditional use permit."

As a result of the closure, Malraj said the teachers at the center lost their jobs, some students were relocated to another tutoring center, and some clients were lost.

Albrecht said that Malraj had also invested money in the property for renovations and equipment to run the tutoring facility.