Residential Center for Alcoholics Protested

A proposal to open a live-in rehabilitation center for recovering women alcoholics in an expensive Woodland Hills neighborhood has sparked an outcry from area homeowners.

Officials of Valley Women’s Center Inc. have signed a contract with Los Angeles County to operate the rehabilitation facility in a leased, 6,000-square-foot home at the southeast corner of Mulholland Drive and Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

But nearby homeowners contend that the center will create safety problems on their streets and spoil the atmosphere of their hillside neighborhood, which lies within a designated scenic corridor of the Santa Monica Mountains.

Los Angeles city and county officials have been drawn into the dispute as homeowners hastily scheduled a meeting for Monday night to fight the center.

‘Prostitutes, Drug Addicts’

“They’re going to be taking in people who have been sent there by the courts--prostitutes, drug addicts, alcoholics,” said Peter Bronstein, a 13-year resident of the area. He lives three houses from the proposed center.

“I expect to see people flying out of there, running down the street and ambulances coming in and out,” he said. “Our neighborhood is just not the place for something like that.”

Not so, said Norma Ehrlich, founder and head of the 9-year-old center. Her Woodland Hills-based group, involved only with outpatient counseling until now, has signed a $229,000 contract with the county Department of Health Services to house recovering women alcoholics for 90-day periods.

“They’re imagining all kinds of things, drug addicts, battered women whose husbands will be knocking on doors, lots of drunks,” Ehrlich said. “But that’s not what it will be. This will not be a detoxification center. It will just be a place for women to live in a sober atmosphere.”

‘They Were Screaming’

Ehrlich said she selected the six-bedroom house after dropping plans to open the recovery center in a five-bedroom home on Kelvin Avenue in Woodland Hills. “We found total opposition in that neighborhood,” she said.

“We had a coffee for the neighbors to explain our plans. But when they came, they wouldn’t listen to us. It was the most horrible experience of my life. They were screaming. . . . I’ve never been so disillusioned.”

Ehrlich said she had anticipated a warmer welcome from neighbors of the new home because it is larger and on a busy street. But because of the new opposition, she said, her plans are on hold while county officials deal with the neighborhood complaints.

Ehrlich said she will be conducting an alcoholics’ counseling session Monday and will not attend the homeowners’ meeting, planned for 7:30 p.m. at Woodland Hills Community Church, 21338 Dumetz Road.

‘Giving It a Chance’

But Al Wright, director of the county health services’ office of alcohol programs, plans to attend. He said his staff will answer questions and try to talk homeowners into “giving it a chance.”

“Most people’s fears are not based in reality,” Wright said. “The public thinks alcoholics are absolute monsters. . . . They think there will be women drunk on the lawn, and ambulances pulling up, and lots of traffic and noise. That’s just not the case.”

He said residents of the center probably would be indistinguishable from other residents of the neighborhood. Abstinence from alcohol is to be enforced at the home, he said, and there would be no loud music, parties or children allowed.

But if “substantial neighborhood opposition” surfaces at Monday’s meeting, Wright said, “we will have to step back and re-evaluate the whole thing.”

Brad Rosenheim, an aide to Woodland Hills-area City Councilman Marvin Braude, said city permission to open the center would be required only if the house takes in more more than six women.

Wright said plans call for opening the facility with six women, though it could accommodate as many as 18.

“Where is a good site for a center like that? I certainly have sympathy with her plight,” Rosenheim said of Ehrlich. “The typical reaction is ‘It’s a wonderful thing, but put it somewhere else.’ ”

On Saturday, people who live near the proposed center, in a 51-year-old pink stucco home that was moved in pieces to the site two years ago, bore that assessment out. Several were distributing circulars in their neighborhood in hopes of stirring up opposition.

“A center for people who need help is a good idea,” said Richard Melendez, a Topanga Canyon Boulevard resident, “but not in a residential area.”

Harriet Recht, who lives on Mulholland Drive next door to the proposed center, agreed.

“There’s a need for centers like this,” she said. “But it shouldn’t be in a place where it will throw a whole neighborhood into a turmoil.”