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It all started on May 9 when Pastor Horowitz relocated from the Salvation Army Westwood building into the YMCA facility leased from LAUSD on Bundy Drive in- Brentwood.

She claims everything was going smoothly until she appeared in person and management saw she was African- American, and worse when her 72 African-American congregation attended the first church meeting.

“When I met with the executive director who is Ann Samson–she’s not Hispanic or black, she’s Caucasian–she was not happy when she met me,” Horowitz said.

“The first thing she said was, ‘You’re Horowitz?’ And I said, ‘Actually I am, but that doesn’t matter does it?

“And she was like ‘no’, but from then on I knew it did.” After the first church meeting, Horowitz received a call from the YMCA Brentwood administration staff.

She was told each member of her congregation were now required to sign a waiver of liability and indemnity agreement seven paragraphs long – even though her church had a multimillion dollar insurance policy.

“I said that can’t be done now, we have a written agreement, and why aren't any of the other programs signing waivers. I am opening up the doors on Sunday morning for the seven member Chinese Church and they had not signed any waivers..." And her response to me was, 'I'm not addressing that with you, your church needs to sign waivers. Ms Samson concluded the conversation and said, ‘You either do the waivers or you get out of my building’.

Horowitz replied, “Okay fine, I will do the waivers. I went to church and had some signed but the people who live in Brentwood wouldn’t sign them. They go to Alcoholic Anonymous meetings there, they go to square dancing there and they’ve never seen this waiver thing before and they don’t agree to it.

“The same day she called again and told me to get out. I said ‘Wait wait, can we talk about it maybe next week and I can stand at the podium again and go over why people have to sign and get more people to sign.

“She said ‘No, you didn’t comply, so get out!”

The next day, on May 26, when Horowitz and some of her church members returned to the facility to collect $1500 worth of their musical equipment, she found the locks had been changed.

Horowitz said none of the other community groups who used the facility, which include adult karate classes, a farmers market, a small Chinese congregation and an Alcoholics Anonymous group, had ever been approached to sign liability waivers.

That’s when she decided to take legal action.

The Church State Council that provides legal counsel and support to the Solutions Christian Church International is investigating claims of religious and racial discrimination.

Alan J. Reinach, executive director of the Church State Council said: “Obviously, the YMCA expected that a church from Westwood and pastored by a “Horowitz” was “white” and was horrified when a large group of blacks showed up.” The Courier contacted YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles for comment but was emailed a prepared statement.

“Allegations by Solutions Christian Church that its privileges to use the YMCA’s Brentwood Youth House were revoked for racial reasons are untrue, unfounded and unwarranted,” the statement read.

“The YMCA’s relationship with Solutions Christian Church was terminated solely because of the church’s repeated failure to comply with the terms and conditions of the facility use agreement – a standard agreement that is required of any group petitioning to use the facility.”

The Courier will keep you updated as this story develops. bgaren@bhcourier.com