Carwash Owner Waits for Notice of Charges

The co-owner of an Encino carwash whom officials charged 10 days ago with false advertising said Monday he has yet to receive any official notification about the charges and that his repeated telephone calls to the Los Angeles city attorney’s office have gone unanswered.

Mike Qualls, a spokesman for City Atty. Jim Hahn, said a notification letter was sent to the owners of the Encino Center Car Wash the same day charges were filed against them and that barring any problems with mail service it should have arrived.

Jeffrey Goodman, 42, of Woodland Hills, and Bernard Goodman, 70, of Encino, are scheduled for arraignment Jan. 31 in Los Angeles Municipal Court.

“We still don’t know what this is about,” Jeffrey Goodman said. “They haven’t even bothered to call. Not one person has bothered to call me back.”

The charges--three counts of false advertising--stemmed from an undercover operation last year when Los Angeles County Department of Consumer Affairs investigators went to the carwash at 16300 Ventura Blvd. and posed as customers, Qualls said.

Workers refused to honor $2.99 coupons for a car hand-wash from another carwash in Tarzana, Qualls said.

Goodman said his carwash does accept coupons from other carwashes, but only for washes. A sign posted at the carwash stated: “We accept all carwash-only coupons at our min[imum] price.” The sign does not refer to coupons for extra services--such as waxes--and perhaps some customers and investigators were confused about what the offer entailed, Goodman said.

Goodman has repeatedly expressed concern about bad publicity and questioned the motives of officials. He said that the day he unofficially heard he was charged, he placed four to five calls to the deputy city attorneys handling the case but no one called back.