Newport Beach City Council members could pass an ordinance as early as next month that would require operators to get a special-use permit to run programs like Sober Living by the Sea.
Angry Balboa Peninsula residents say such programs bring a criminal element into their neighborhoods and claim clients leave a trail of loud swearing, second-hand cigarette smoke and trash behind them.
The majority of rehabilitation home operators have shied away from commenting publicly on the issue — but Sober Living officials say it is a good neighbor.
“There’s a need for what we do here,” said Bill, executive director of Sober Living by the Sea. “Addiction is a deadly disease. It kills.”
Bill, who has been with the program for the past 15 years, did not want the Daily Pilot to use his last name.
He fears rehab home activists who say programs like Sober Living by the Sea are a nuisance to neighborhoods on Balboa Peninsula will track him down and attack him publicly for his work with the facility.
“I don’t want to put my family though that,” he said.
A row of computers lines the wall of one sunny, spacious room in the blue house. White vans take some of the residents each day to classes at Saddleback College and Orange Coast College.
“Addiction often disrupts people during the time in their life where they’re supposed to be going to school,” Bill said. “They can get back on track here.”
The average Sober Living by the Sea client is middle to upper-middle class, in their mid-20s, has at least a few years of college, and “comes from a good family,” said John Peloquin, vice president of operations for CRC Health Group, which owns Sober Living by the Sea.
