Huntington Beach, Orange County team up to sue sober homes

In a growing crackdown on abuses in the addiction treatment industry, Huntington Beach and the Orange County District Attorney’s office are employing a novel legal approach in suing five sober living homes.

The suits, filed this month in Orange County Superior Court, contend that each residence is operating as a substance abuse recovery or treatment facility without a license. The suits charge the homes with creating public nuisances, as well as with unfair competition.

“This is the first wave of the lawsuits of this kind, and it’s novel because, historically, cities have only had nuisance causes of action,” said Michael Gates, Huntington Beach’s city attorney.

“Nuisance doesn’t have a lot of teeth to it, honestly.”

Homes offering treatment must be licensed by the state, while homes offering only shelter do not. The suits contend these homes are giving treatment illegally.

“We set up a series of meetings with the D.A. and came up with a plan to use the state’s business and professions code as well as nuisance, which is significant because we can get daily penalties and fines of $2,500 a day, and we can get them to disgorge their profits. If they profited, say, a half-million dollars a year by operating illegally, we can recover that as well,” Gates said.

Among those targeted are Stephouse Recovery and George Valigut, for activities at 10412 Christmas Drive; Nevaeh Re 1 LLC, for 10321 Christmas Drive; Anthony Roxstrom, for 21892 Starfire Lane; Coastline Recovery LLC and Taylor Browman, for 8301 Yorktown Avenue; and David and Andrea Lacy, for 9061 Mediterranean Drive.

The city’s partnership with District Attorney Tony Rackauckas enables the use of the state’s business and professions code, and Gates predicted other cities might use a similar strategy and that more such suits will be filed in coming months.

Southern California is a hotbed of drug and alcohol recovery centers, with about 1,100 such businesses operating in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Many of the people who own those centers also own or control sober living homes, usually residential properties where they send clients for follow-up treatment. It’s not known how many sober homes there are in the region, but many generate neighborhood complaints, police and ambulance calls, and crime.

Gates plans to bring a proposal to the Huntington Beach City Council next month to outline an ongoing strategy.

“You saw five in this filing, and if we kept the same pace, you’d see another five in another 60 days or so,” he said. “If the City Council chooses to allocate more resources, we could pick up another attorney to devote to this effort, and we could tackle a lot more of these sooner.”

Huntington Beach’s code enforcement department estimates there are about 100 sober living homes in the city. And it is targeting homes that generate the most complaints first.

But Gates disputed the notion that Huntington Beach is cracking down on every sober living home in its jurisdiction.

“If they’re properly licensed as treatment centers, then they’re not illegal businesses,” he said of the homes. “If they truly are just a home, and there is no treatment happening there – no counseling; no medical services – then we won’t touch those. (Residents of such homes) are considered basically a family.”

Owners and operators of the five homes could not be reached for comment.