State Agency Probing Drug Program’s Use of Unlicensed Home

The controversial SLIC (Sober Live-In Center) Ranch drug and alcohol rehabilitation program operated by embattled sobriety guru Bob Meehan may be operating illegally because the home is not licensed, a state official said Wednesday.

Tom Hersant, who heads the San Diego community care licensing office of the state Department of Social Services, said his office is investigating Meehan’s program because of the assumption that those living at the program’s home include minors who need supervision.

“We assume he has unemancipated children there, minors, and that’s the concern we’ve got. Minors need care and supervision, and that means he needs a license,” Hersant said.

Meehan maintained Wednesday that he does not need a state license to operate the SLIC Ranch home because he is not providing care and supervision for his clients, even though he admitted that some are as young as 12 years old.

“The young people’s parents gave them permission to stay at SLIC Ranch. They maintain custody of their children, and they’ve basically given them the right to spend overnight at SLIC Ranch for 30 nights in a row,” Meehan said.

In fact, Meehan said, SLIC Ranch is nothing more than a rooming house for young people who are then driven by him into Escondido for actual therapy.

SLIC Ranch, Meehan said, is the name for his program of therapy and peer support designed to help young people get off drugs and alcohol, and does not necessarily refer to a specific facility. While he now has just six clients--who pay $5,000 for the 30-day program--living in a home on Quailridge Road in the San Pasqual Valley, he is looking to lease more houses, he said.

“As long as I don’t have more than six young people at any one facility, and I do no supervision of the young people, a license is not required,” he argued.

“It’s no more than a boarding house for young people who need a sober live-in facility for a positive environment. But there is no treatment given there--I take them into Escondido, where I provide outpatient therapy at a commercial location. So, I don’t need a license for the home.”

Hersant countered: “Son of a gun, that’s a pretty creative interpretation. There’s nothing magic about the number 6. What matters is, if care and supervision are offered, you need a license. And if you’re a child, you’ve got to be supervised.”

Meehan said the Quailridge Road home is staffed by managers who are graduates of the SLIC Ranch program and range in age from 18 to 31. There is at least one manager at the home at all times, but they do not actually live on the premises, he said.

“If he (Hersant) chooses to say I need a license, I’ll fight him on it,” Meehan said. “To do what they’ll say I’ll have to do (in order) to have a license will be countertherapeutic. How much does he know about treatment, and the Cheech and Chong generation? . . .

“When I’m treating a kid who lives in a place with big red ‘exit’ signs over every door, he’s gonna start thinking he’s living in an institution. That’ll take away from the home environment that I want him to have.”

Meehan has operated SLIC Ranch homes in at least two other locations near Escondido since he began the program in 1983.

He was ordered to leave the first home, on Lake Wohlford Road just northeast of town, because of zoning violations. He said that, before he leased the house, he had been assured by its owner that his anti-drug and alcohol program could be legally conducted there, and learned later that it could not.

He proposed moving his program to Valley Center but backed off in the face of opposition from residents of the town.

Instead, Meehan established a SLIC Ranch home on Oakvale Road, not far from the first location. He was ordered by Hersant to acquire a state license to operate that home, and instead Meehan moved to his current location, a ranch-style house.

Hersant said Wednesday that he had assumed that Meehan had stopped his therapy program when he left Oakvale Road and didn’t realize that he simply relocated it to Quailridge Road.

“So now we’re investigating,” Hersant said.

SLIC Ranch has come under harsh criticism from former staff members and participants, who have characterized the operation as cult-like. They say Meehan has treated young people by replacing their addition to drug and alcohol use with a psychological addiction to him and veteran SLIC followers.

Meehan detractors have alleged that he has carried his “sober-can-be-fun” philosophy to extreme by condoning, if not outright encouraging, rebellious activities and pranks, including vandalizing mailboxes and restaurants, and reckless driving. Critics say Meehan has attempted to dictate life styles, encouraged vulgarity and racism, and turned young people away from their families’ religious beliefs.

And Meehan has been accused of establishing Freeway, a free, community-based sobriety support group for teen-agers and parents, as a way of funneling paying clients into his private SLIC Ranch. Freeway folded last week when its board of directors said they could no longer raise money to support the organization in the face of such criticism.

Meehan, who lives in Rancho Bernardo, has denied all the accusations, characterizing them as either totally false or half-truths.

“They might as well be asking me if I still beat my wife,” he complained on Wednesday. “These are stupid accusations. People want to blame me because their families aren’t working right. I’m a good man, a reputable man.”

As many as 21 persons have been enrolled in SLIC Ranch at a time.