Very Well Said

Earlier in the week, Cindy Olsen wrote an opinion piece for the Daily Pilot which asked everyone to "Walk in rehab patrons’ shoes to fully understand needs."

It essentially gives the impression that the Rehab Home Activists are Anti-Recovering Addicts.

She compares the request for the "Patient's" background checks as "reminiscent of the McCarthy Era blacklisting."

As a father of three, I'm ok with the characterization of a McCarthy Era blacklisting-requiring background checks, especially with the possibility of a ever rotating gaggle of between 6-12 "disabled" but transient "patients" who stay in the 4 rehab homes which are within 1/2 mile of our home.

Click here to see what I'm most afraid of staying for 3 weeks, 1/2 mile away from my kids.

Most of the transient population on the Peninsula live in their houses for months at a time. The college students rent during the winter and the Vacation Rentals renters are paying thousands a week to spend a week away from their landlocked normal lives. I personally know a Congressman and many former City Councilmembers (from other cities) who use vacation rentals on the beach.

Many of the Rehab Home residents drop out of the program (according the Sober Living by the Sea rep at the Lido Isle Associations Town Hall Meeting) within a month, who are then replaced by other "residents", and so on ...

Anyways, in today's Daily Pilot is Steven Briggs' response to Cindy Olsen's opinion piece, and I must say, it perfectly encapsulates the situation.

The issue here isn't the Rehab/Sober Living Homes. I'm not against them. My best friend's life was saved because of one (in Laguna Beach).

The issue here is, by Sober Living by the Sea's February 2007 assertion, their 41 (each with 6-12 "residents") homes in residential neighborhoods.

The issue here is the crazy, crazy proliferation and institutionalization of residential neighborhoods with, and let's not mince words, businesses.

On Lido Isle, it's in the CC&Rs. We cannot do business from our homes.

But yet there are 4 "businesses" on Lido.

Sober Living by the Sea has always maintained that they are the "good" operators, the "good" neighbors.

But what "Good" neighbor would put 41 businesses in residential areas?

There are more Sober Living by the Sea outlets in my neighborhood than McDonald's, Starbucks, gas stations and schools combined.

There are more Sober Living/Rehab homes operating (legally and illegally) on the Peninsula than any other business.

There is nothing discriminatory about the proposed ordinance.

We just want our residential neighborhoods back to being residential and not commercial.