Danny Hang: ‘I certainly feel safe walking’ in West Hollywood

West Hollywood City Council candidate Danny Hang affirmed his allegiance to labor unions and downplayed fears about rising crime in an interview with Westside Voice’s Todd Flora this week. 

Flora quizzed Hang, a Business License commissioner and county employee who connects police and firefighters with disability benefits, on a number of topics relevant to WeHo as voters in the city prepare to pick two out of 10 candidates in the running to fill the open seats on the five-member council this November. 

Recalling his history and what led him to the race, Hang thanked Supervisor Lindsey Horvath and Councilmember Sepi Shyne for appointing him, respectively, to the Disabilities Advisory Board and the Business License Commission. 

He said his biggest accomplishment so far on the commission was saving the endangered license of cannabis dispensary MedMen because of the union jobs it preserved.

“Being that it was the only unionized dispensary in our city— and it wasn’t the workers’ fault— I could not, in good conscience, vote to revoke the license and therefore displace over 10 workers from a union job in our city, because that’s what I value,” Hang said. “I value union jobs. My dad was a union worker for over 30 years. ”

Mayor John M. Erickson and Hang are both receiving immense support for their campaigns from UNITE HERE Local 11, the labor union whose deep pockets and bully tactics have allowed it to become a kingmaker in WeHo municipal elections over the past few cycles. Hang championed City Council’s work on raising the minimum wage for hotel workers and for carving out affordable housing units in luxury developments, ostensibly to help workers like those represented by UNITE HERE live closer to where they work.

“A worker shouldn’t have to drive from Lake Perris to come to West Hollywood to earn a little under $20 an hour,” Hang said. “Workers should have a work-life balance and live near where they work. That’s why we need to build more housing in our city to accommodate everyone, including myself, and protect and strengthen renters’ rights.”

Hang signaled belief in the questionable link between lack of housing in WeHo and homelessness, and implied he would support more “wraparound” services such as the Holloway homeless housing facility that is under construction. 

“I just want to be able to build more housing to stabilize the rental market, drive rental prices down, and keep people in their homes,” Hang said. “That’s an issue we have here in West Hollywood— the lack of housing. If we build more housing, we’ll be able to help our unhoused community members that are on the streets.”

Flora asked Hang whether crime and public safety were “overhyped concerns.”

“I don’t want to use the word ‘fearmongering,'” Hang answered, “but I certainly feel safe walking down the street in West Hollywood.”

Hang agreed crime was a valid concern, admitting to Flora that his phone had been pickpocketed “maybe once or twice,” but he blamed “factions in the community” for playing up the threat.

“We have our Block by Block program, unarmed security ambassadors that aid our deputy sheriffs and assist us as community members,” Hang said. “The program allows our deputy sheriffs to focus on fighting and solving crimes. There’s no reason why our deputy sheriffs should respond to an unhoused person having a mental health crisis— that’s why we have the security ambassadors to aid them in their line of duty.”

After discussing his love of Real Housewives and his favorite Olympic competitions, Hang ended the interview expressing interest in “uplift(ing) our small businesses here in the city” — but “not at the expense of our workers or what they’re being paid as the minimum wage, or their paid time off,” he said.