L.A. Sued on Day-Care Regulations

A Westchester woman has filed a lawsuit alleging that the city of Los Angeles’ policy of regulating home day-care centers is illegal and contributes to the child-care shortage locally.

The suit, served on city officials Thursday on behalf of Aileen Halliday, contends that city restrictions imposed on her center violate the state’s Child Day Care Facilities Act.

“To this day, the city of Los Angeles has failed in its duty and obligation to comply with state law,” said Benjamin Reznik, one of Halliday’s lawyers.

Halliday, who has run a day-care center for children between the ages of 8 weeks and 2 1/2 years since 1985, was faced with either closing down her center or complying with a list of conditions that city zoning officials said her business was required to meet.

Reznik said Halliday’s troubles with the city began in the spring of 1988 when a neighbor complained of noise caused by the 12 children she then was caring for and by parents dropping them off as early as 5:30 a.m. The complaint set off a series of inspections from various city agencies and two public hearings.

Fred Gaines, Halliday’s other lawyer, said city officials ordered that Halliday’s center operate from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. She also was ordered to restrict the hours during which children could play outside to 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. And she was told to reduce the number of children at her center from 12 to 10.

Gaines said these conditions would make it “impossible for her to operate her facility in a manner that is either logical, reasonable or in accordance with state law.”

Halliday’s suit contends that the city is violating the state law by overstepping its authority to regulate day-care centers. According to the suit, the city has jurisdiction only over zoning issues relating to home day-care centers. Such issues as a center’s hours of operation and its number of children are left to the state, according to the suit.

The city’s efforts to regulate Halliday’s center are not only illegal, Reznik said, but they will have the effect of discouraging others from embarking in the child-care field.

“We all know that the day-care crisis is upon us,” he said. “The city should be doing everything in its power to encourage residential day-care facilities.”

But restrictions such as those the city has sought to impose on Halliday can only worsen the situation by driving potential home-care providers away from the field and driving others underground, he charged.

“We’re going to see the shortages in family day-care increase rather than decrease,” he said.

Patsy Lane, city coordinator for child care, said the city wants to encourage the development of more residential day-care centers.

But she added that “one of the challenges is balancing the rights of the surrounding homeowners with the need for home-based child care.”

Lane said she could not comment on the specifics of Halliday’s case but said sometimes issues such as the number of children in a home can determine the amount of noise, which in turn is a zoning issue.

In her lawsuit, Halliday asks for $100,000 and a new city law that complies with the state law.