Lineage Logistics missed a city-ordered deadline to clear millions of pounds of rotting food from its burned-out Boyle Heights warehouse by Friday evening.
The company, 37 days into what it calls a 45-day cleanup period, now says it expects to finish removing all food waste by Aug. 27. Lineage claimed Wednesday that 93% of the bulk food waste is already gone. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, 71, had set the Aug. 15 deadline after the July 9 fire destroyed the cold-storage facility.
Residents say the delay has left them swarming in flies, rats and unanswered questions about chemical exposure. “I’ve got flies the size of Subarus at my house. Never seen these before in 25 years,” one nearby resident wrote online.
At a Thursday night community meeting, frustration boiled over as residents confronted officials about living conditions they described as unbearable. “Our soil, our air, our water, everything has been contaminated,” one resident said.
Boyle Heights resident Laura Garza accused Lineage representatives of dodging substantive questions about safety. “They picked and chose what questions they were going to answer. And then, it was the same answer. You can call these phone numbers,” Garza said 7.
The meeting exposed a sharp divide between corporate promises and resident demands. “Lineage has a number you can call if you want an air conditioner. But what’s the number you call if you want to know what chemicals you were exposed to, and why they haven’t cleaned it up yet?” One resident asked.
Lineage says it has about 400 workers daily on the cleanup and is spending roughly $100 million on the effort. The company argues it is making sufficient progress within its own timeline.
Bass fired back that a multibillion-dollar corporation should have met the city’s deadline. “Lineage is a multibillion-dollar company with the resources to meet the 45-day deadline I set,” she said in a statement. “They have indicated that they will not meet it [Friday]. Meanwhile, the people of Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles continue to live with the consequences. Families are still dealing with horrific odors and the constant uncertainty of when this nightmare will end.”
Councilmember Ysabel Jurado was equally scathing, accusing Lineage of strategic delay in disputing the deadline. “For weeks, the City has publicly told Boyle Heights, the media, and anyone that would listen that August 14 was the deadline for Lineage to remove the food waste from this facility,” Jurado said in a statement. “If Lineage believed that deadline was wrong, it had weeks to say so publicly. Waiting until the eve of the deadline to announce a different interpretation of the calendar is not accountability.”
Bass has signaled escalating city action. She urged the City Council to pursue civil litigation and all legal avenues to recover costs, writing in a post to X: “That is unacceptable. I will use every resource at my disposal to demand compliance and hold Lineage accountable for every day that Boyle Heights residents are forced to breathe putrid air and deal with the flies and rats, because of the company’s negligence.”
She also took executive action to pause processing of Lineage’s plans to rebuild the facility.
In the viral moment that sparked the city crackdown, a massive fire erupted July 9 at the Lineage Logistics cold-storage warehouse in the industrial corridor of Boyle Heights, a predominantly Latino neighborhood east of downtown Los Angeles. The blaze burned for days, destroying the facility and leaving behind millions of pounds of frozen and refrigerated food that began thawing and decomposing in the summer heat. The resulting stench, pest infestation and fears of chemical contamination have made the warehouse a flashpoint for environmental justice activism in the city.
Lineage maintains the food will be completely removed by Aug. 27.
Bass’s office has not announced a specific date for potential litigation filing.