The City of Malibu last week won its first legislative battle in the war against residential rehab and drug treatment centers, after the California Assembly Committee on Health unanimously passed out a bill requiring such facilities to be spaced a minimum of 300 feet apart. The vote was 15-0, with four members absent or abstaining.
This spacing is designed to cut down on “overconcentration” of facilities, long a thorn in the side of Malibu residents who claim they’ve seen neighborhoods swallowed up by such facilities, operating on what supporters say are “loopholes within the existing laws.”
The committee met last Tuesday to hear arguments on the bill, which came about in large part due to the efforts of Malibu Mayor Pro Tem Lou La Monte. The bill was sponsored by Assemblymember Richard Bloom of District 50, who represents Malibu. It will now go on to the Assembly Committee on Appropriations.
According to the bill analysis, the proposed legislation would require the Department of Health Care Services to deny license applications for new facilities, “if the proposed location is within 300 feet of an existing facility.” If facilities within 300 feet of each other — so-called “integral facilities” — exist, the proposed bill “permits integral facilities to be subject to local regulations and ordinances as specified.”
In opposition to the bill, Promises Treatment Centers of California wrote, “the new definition of an ‘integral facility’ unravels long-standing state law designed to promote effective treatment strategies,” and calls the widely spaced facilities an “inefficient model” for treatment.
La Monte announced at a February City Council meeting that the bill would be sponsored by Bloom and penned by City Attorney Christi Hogin. Hogin gave testimony at the hearing that La Monte later described as “worthy of the Supreme Court.”
“I have literally spent years trying to find the right combination of events to get this to happen,” La Monte said at the February meeting.
The League of California Cities officially voiced support for the bill, according to documents from the California Legislative Council.
“I did an awful lot of research, and I came to find out it wasn’t just another whiny Malibu problem,” La Monte joked at the meeting. A resolution from the League of California Cities, sponsored by La Monte, was passed, meaning “473 other cities that all have this same issue” are represented by the bill.
Those in opposition to the bill include Cliffside Malibu and Promises, as well as County Behavioral Health Directors Association.
In addition to the League of California Cities, supporters of the proposed legislation include both the Los Angeles County Sheriffs and the Los Angeles County Professional Peace Officers Association, the County Health Executives Association of California and several individuals and municipalities.
Passages rehab sued for wrongful death
The bill makes its way through the Assembly while perhaps the most prominent of Malibu’s residential rehab facilities, Passages Malibu, continues to be embroiled in controversy.
Passages Malibu, LLC, along with Passages Silverstrand, LLC, and Grasshopper House, LLC, are defendants in a lawsuit over a death that occurred at Passages Ventura in 2015, when resident Gregory Link was found dead in his room hours after checking into the facility.
Link’s death, which coroners declared a suicide, was mentioned by former Passages employees who sued the company in September 2015. At that time, one of the former employees, Kim Ford, accused Passages’ owner Pax Prentiss and chief operating officer Marina Mahoney of tampering with the scene of the death, according to the complaint.
“State agency representatives came to investigate and asked for personnel files. Ford wanted to help and to walk through with the state agency, but Pax Prentiss kept her away and Ford saw Mahoney rush to try to get her hands on the personnel files before the state agency was able to,” the suit alleged.
Neither Pax nor his father, co-owner Chris Prentiss, are named in the wrongful death suit.
Link’s wife Lani is suing the facilities and Link’s roommate for wrongful death, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, negligent hiring, training and supervision, fraud, concealment and conspiracy.
The case points out, “Link’s death was determined to be a suicide by both the investigator and the County Coroner who conducted the autopsy, both of whom have since been either terminated or put on administrative leave as they are together the subject of a conspiracy investigation.”
“This lawsuit stems from both the tragic loss of a wonderful husband and a genuine concern that this matter has not been the subject of the scrutiny and investigation it deserves,” the case reads.
Calls to Passages remained unanswered as The Malibu Times went to print on Tuesday night.