AA Chapter Fights to Keep Studio City Meeting Hall

Alcoholics Anonymous is battling a Los Angeles zoning administrator’s order that its North Hollywood chapter vacate a former church building in Studio City where it has met for 43 years.

At the center of the controversy is the Grove Assn., which maintains that people who attend AA meetings clog quiet neighborhood streets with their cars and sometimes urinate in front yards and pass out on front porches.

AA officials vehemently deny the neighborhood group’s claims and are appealing Associate Zoning Administrator Jon Perica’s ruling that the organization must find a new location for the chapter. The issue is to be heard by the Board of Zoning Appeals on Nov. 4.

The chapter has been so successful at drawing alcoholics to its meetings that the one-story building at the end of Radford Avenue cannot accommodate the crowds, Perica and the residents say. The chapter has grown from about 40 members when it was founded in 1946 to about 200.

Grove Assn. members say they are not discounting the good work the chapter has done. But that work has been overshadowed by the problems that people attending AA meetings have brought into the neighborhood, where many houses are worth $500,000 and up, the residents say.

AA officials have a different point of view. After all, they say, the organization was there before the homeowners and has a right to remain in the neighborhood.

“This is life and death for the people who come here,” said Evelyn Carruthers, manager of the building and a member of the group. “We have nothing against our neighbors, but we can’t see closing this place down instead of saving peoples’ lives. We’re going to fight this to the end.”

Being forced to move out of the brown building--in a cul-de-sac that borders a city flood control channel--would be tantamount to closing the chapter, because the AA cannot afford to move, said J.C. Phillips, trustee of the chapter.

“This is only a small proportion of residents who are against us,” Phillips said. “Most of Studio City supports us.”

Indeed, representatives of the Studio City Chamber of Commerce and the Studio City Residents Assn. support having the AA chapter stay put. “We don’t want them thrown out, but parking has to be found somewhere,” said Polly Ward, president of the Studio City association.

Phillips blamed some of the parking, traffic and loitering problems on other businesses on the street, such as CBS Studios. “It’s amazing how these folks who complain can look at a car or a person and tell they’re from AA,” he said.

A spokesman for the studios could not be reached for comment.

Phillips admitted that some of those attending meetings may have been loud as they arrived or left meetings. “But are these neighbors going to tell my guests not to hang out on the sidewalk?” he said. “Do I tell their guests to quiet down?”

Residents have complained for years about crowds that come to the chapter six days a week. The building is open from 11 a.m to 11 p.m. Monday through Friday. Meetings are held Tuesday through Saturday afternoon from noon to 1:30 p.m., and Tuesday through Saturday evenings from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Neighbors say those drawn to the AA meetings have taken up almost all street parking for blocks around the meeting hall, and have left trash and bottles in yards and streets. Cars have raced down the streets, they complain. And some attendees, residents say, have urinated on lawns, passed out on porches and curbs or have threatened and cursed residents.

“Please understand, the homeowners are totally compassionate and supportive of AA,” said Rene Gunther, who has lived in the area for five years. “This is not a lynch mob to get AA.

“But we have compromised with them as much as we can,” she said. “They are not an asset anymore, and they have abused the privilege of being here. They are a detriment to property values. They have to move, as much for their benefit as for ours.”

But chapter officials say they already have made concessions to the neighborhood, including cutting back the number of weekend meetings from four to one. They say that members are asked to be quiet when entering and leaving the neighborhood and that 200 people are seldom at the building at one time, as some neighbors have contended.

The AA group began operating in the building in March, 1946, just two months before Los Angeles enacted zoning laws that prevented the establishment of meeting halls in residential neighborhoods.

Perica ruled in June that the chapter had to find another meeting hall within a year. He also ruled that the chapter had to make arrangements for off-street parking or vacate by August. His rulings were held in abeyance, however, when the AA appealed.

“It’s obvious that this chapter saves lives,” he said. “But there are real problems. They have people coming in who are trying to kick serious habits but haven’t quite done it yet. These folks will drink their bottles of vodka outside and throw them on the street before going to the meeting.”

Sally Daley, who has lived in the area for 30 years, said: ‘This used to be a quiet neighborhood when there were only a few meetings a week. We moved here because of the kind of community it was. But it keeps getting worse and worse.”

Others are more torn by the conflict. Bill Moloney, who has lived in the neighborhood for less than a year, said both of his parents were alcoholics. His said his father died of acute alcoholism.

“I want to be loving and supportive. . . . I’m astonished at their success,” he said of the AA chapter. “I just feel that they need to recognize they’ve outgrown that place.”