Abortion Clinic Gets Eviction Notice Claiming $30,000 in Rent Is Owed

As the embattled Feminist Women’s Health Center gears up for a court hearing to restrain pickets at the abortion clinic in downtown Santa Ana, landlords have served an eviction notice on the premises, claiming they are owed more than $30,000 in back rent.

Building owners Edward N. and Norma L. Miner, in a complaint filed this week in Orange County Superior Court, allege that the center owes $30,717 in unpaid rent. In addition to eviction, the Santa Ana couple are seeking the past-due amount plus damages and legal costs.

Carol Downer, executive director of the nonprofit health center and a sister clinic in Los Angeles, charged Friday that the Miners reneged on a more than 2-year-old agreement to accept reduced monthly rent for reduced space.

Settlement Breaks Down

Meanwhile, a settlement between the women’s center and anti-abortion groups and supporters to limit the activities of pickets outside the center at 406 S. Main St. for a 30-day trial period collapsed this week amid charges and countercharges.

Superior Court Commissioner Greer Stroud set a hearing for Feb. 26 to consider extending a temporary restraining order that bars two anti-abortion groups and two dozen supporters from verbally or physically accosting patients and others entering the clinic.

Downer said the reason behind the eviction suit is that the owners have not found a second tenant to share the building because of vocal anti-abortion demonstrators, some of whom have tossed rocks through plate-glass doors and harassed pa tients and employees entering and leaving the building. Once, a dead cat was found hanging in the doorway.

“They told us no one would rent with the picketing that has been taking place,” Downer said of the owners.

Link Denied

But Kenneth A. Bryant, attorney for the Miners, denied that there was a link, even indirectly, between the eviction action and pickets who have marched with placards and leaflets on Wednesdays and Saturdays for the past two years.

“My clients have tried to work with the Feminist Women’s Health Center for a while,” Bryant said. “They have been in arrears on their rent and they couldn’t make up the back rent payments they had agreed to. So finally, we just gave up and decided to commence legal action.”

An attorney for some of the demonstrators denied Friday that pickets had any link to the center’s financial problems or the eviction action.

“It couldn’t have anything to do with our people,” Santa Ana lawyer Stephen R. Crandall said. “Our people have been going to the clinic less and less for the last few months because they have put the building up for sale.”

‘For Sale’ Sign Up

(A “for sale” sign went up on the building a few months ago. The owners are asking $350,000 for the building on a commercially zoned 50-by-100-foot lot, according to a real estate agent.)

“I think they (clinic officials) are unsuccessful in their business and trying to blame it on us,” Crandall said. “They are unsuccessful in attracting a tenant because the abortion clinic kills babies. Would you want to work next door to people who commit murder?”

“But,” he added, “we’re certainly not unhappy to see it go. . . . I think my clients would be happy that perhaps it (eviction) would mean a few more babies would live.”

Cecil Pumphrey, a leader of the Eagle’s Nest Christian Fellowship, said Friday that the behavior of pickets belonging to the Santa Ana church group had been too orderly to deter potential tenants.

Clinic officials entered into a seven-year lease of the 5,000-square-foot building in October, 1979. A three-day notice to pay rent or quit was served on the clinic on Jan. 31. Because of the amount in question, a landlord must file a suit in Superior Court to evict a tenant.

Rent Put at $3,526

According to eviction papers filed in court by Bryant, center officials agreed to rent the premises for $2,400 monthly. With annual increases built in for inflation, rent went up to $2,592 a month in November, 1981, and to $3,526 in January.

Center officials say that the rent is well above prevailing rates in the downtown area for similar facilities and that the Miners were attempting to recoup the above-market price they paid for the building in 1979.

Downer said the center began to have problems making the monthly rent more than two years ago and sat down with the Miners to renegotiate the lease.

Downer said they orally agreed to allow the center to pay $2,000 a month if they reduced the area occupied and agreed to help show the building to potential co-tenants. Downer said the center officials agreed to move if a tenant was found who wanted the entire building.

She said a new lease was not drafted because the Miners did not want to harm the market value of their property. She said they wanted to be able to show potential buyers they were getting the highest possible rent.

‘Never a Renegotiation’

The Miners could not be reached for comment. But Bryant said Friday, “To my knowledge, there was never a renegotiation of the lease.”

But Bryant did acknowledge there was an agreement made for the center to pay $2,000 a month, far less than even the original monthly rent.

“Additionally, they (center officials) were supposed to make payment on the amount in arrears,” Bryant said. “It was a situation where my client would be in monthly contact with them to urge them to make payment and they have not.”

Downer agreed that the center owes a small amount in back rent to the Miners, but she said it definitely does not exceed $5,000.

The Feminist Women’s Health Center has until early next week to respond to the Miners’ complaint. Downer said they intend to fight the action.

Injunction Still Sought

Fullerton attorney Judith Kaluzny said the center will continue to press for a preliminary injunction against the pickets on Feb. 26.

“No person should be prevented from seeking the medical care of their choice,” Kaluzny said, adding that the behavior of the pickets from Eagle’s Nest and Life Center, a Santa Ana anti-abortion group, has intimidated many women who would otherwise have sought care at the clinic.

The defendants have fought the action as an intrusion on their rights to freedom of speech, of assembly and the practice of their religion.

A tentative settlement scuttled this week would have allowed pickets to say to patients entering, ‘May I talk with you in regard to abortion?’ Kaluzny said. If the patient ignored them or refused, the pickets would agree to say nothing more and to stay a safe distance from the building.

Kaluzny said it was to be for a 30-day trial period that would be reviewed by the court commissioner in early April to see if defendants complied. She said it was scrapped because lawyers for the defense were insisting that the center drop its suit as a condition of the agreement.

Crandall countered that the center’s attorneys were not negotiating in good faith and simply want to harass the demonstrators with the suit, which seeks $100,000 in damages.