“Severe over-concentration of drug-rehab homes in Newport Beach was spawned by a handful of complicit and negligent public officials,” [Newport anti-rehab-home] activist Bob Rush said. “This lawsuit will bring to light the misdeeds of those public officials and hold them accountable for the long-term damage that they have caused the community.”
And apparently, this is why a group of “Concerned Citizens” is filing a lawsuit against the City of Newport Beach. According to them, the city has been criminally negligent in ignoring city ordinances and allowing the proliferation of all these rehab homes. They say their neighborhoods’ well-being is at stake, and that’s why they’re going forward with the lawsuit.
However, not everyone sees the lawsuit this way. Rather, some legal experts are saying that while a city might be held liable for actively encouraging developments that harm quality of life, it probably can’t be sued successfully for failing to prevent these developments. And besides, Newport Beach revised its ordinances on drug rehab homes in 2004 because they feared state laws forbidding discrimination against people with disabilities (including addiction problems). And anyways, the city has now enacted new ordinances to crack down on the overabundance of rehab homes in town.
So who’s right here? What do you think about this lawsuit against Newport Beach? Are the concerned citizens right to ask for $250 million in compensation for all these eyesores being so close to their homes? Or is this unfair, as the city’s only trying to obey the law?
I want to hear what you have to say about this new fight over rehab homes in Newport Beach. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Go ahead and have your say.
bob rush and his “concerned citizens” are just afraid of things they cant possibly understand. they remind me of those people who are so scared of “illegals” and what they might do so they run around terrified demanding they leave. i live in a neighborhood that has real crime drugs, prostitution,gangs and you know what the least of my worries is? the 5 rehab homes down the street from me. never in all the years that iv’e lived here has anybody had a single problem with these people who are trying to get their lives together. when they walk by they are always friendly and say hello to you. they dont come to your house and steal and cause trouble and ive never seen the cops at any of those houses ever. bob rush sounds like a very scared little man to me.
I’m not sure what happens in Newport Beach, but there is a rehab home next to my house in West Garden Grove. They are the scourge of the neighborhood. I can’t tell how many times I’ve seen someone returning home completely watsted … sometimes in the middle of the afternoon. There are all kinds of visitors at all hours of the day, they park blocking my driveway, and once my six-year old saw two of them having sex in front of the second floor window which overlooks our back yard. I don’t care what goes on in their bedrooms, but in a neighbhorhood with houses on top of each other, the least they could do is close the blinds.
It is confusing to me what Bob Rush is referring to when he states, “long-term damage that they have caused the community.†There are areas all over where drug addiction and crime is ramped. I think that those particular communities are the ones that suffer from “long-term damage caused by the community”. Currently Newport Beach has a very high number of sober individuals that have turned their lives around & are making positive contributions to society. I see this as a positive thing. The subject of addiction & recovery is something that many do not understand and therefore there is fear around it. I would suggest that these individuals get educated on the topic.
It is an outrage to how these “concerned citizens” of Newport fail to look at all the others who are drinking such as college kids etc. They are trying to take away the ability for people who are trying to get their lives together to be able to do so. What a joke-Bob Rush has obviously never had to get his life back together and should be sued for this abuse of process. I live near one of these homes and would rather do so than live next to the other houses where young kids are partying every night. The rehab is always quiet and goes to bed at a reasonable time without loud music.
To those of you who do not think these rehabs cause serious issues and severely impact the quality of life of other residents have NO IDEA what you are talking about.
Try living next door to one.