Leisure World Couple Allege Age Bias : Retirement: Husband, 74, can swim or golf. His wife, 51, is deemed too young. Official says they knew rules.

Alfred and Mary Gray, married for three years and residents of Leisure World, are anything but equal under the community’s rules.

While Albert, 74, is welcomed to take a swim in the community pool or play a round at the local golf course, Mary, 51, is barred from using either facility. Nor may she join any of the more than 200 clubs in the gated complex.

The Grays are incensed by the longstanding rules, which deny Leisure World residents younger than 55 access to many services, facilities and organizations.

“She feels like a second-class citizen,” Alfred Gray complains. “It’s illegal.”

And some fair-housing experts say that Gray might be right. They point to state anti-discrimination laws that prohibit housing complexes--even ones such as Leisure World that are geared toward senior citizens--from withholding services to residents based on their age.

“If people living in a complex are normally entitled to use certain (facilities) that are denied to people of a certain age, I feel that could fall into the (category) of age discrimination,” said Myonia Gibbs, district administrator of the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing.

Gibbs stressed that her office could not make conclusions about the Leisure World policy without further investigation. But she did say that the situation did appear worthy of a state probe.

The Grays, who have tried unsuccessfully to get Leisure World to change the policy, said Thursday that they are in the process of requesting a state investigation. They’ve also sent letters to the Department of Housing and Urban Development and to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Leisure World officials defended their rules, saying they are neither discriminatory nor illegal.

“We are following every element of the law,” said George Brown, a resident of Leisure World who is a leader in that community and also a Seal Beach councilman. “They knew about (the rules) in advance. They knew what they were doing when they signed up.”

Some residents said the rules are designed to maintain the complex’s focus as an over-55 retirement community.

Alfred Gray admitted he has known about the rules since Mary moved into his Leisure World home three years ago after their marriage. The Grays even have different identification cards that denote their level of access to the community’s services.

But the couple said they didn’t realize how “unfair” the policy was until Mary Gray was asked recently to join a Friends of the Library group. She was eager to join, but once Leisure World officials determined that she was only 51 years old, she was booted out of the club, they said.

“That’s when it really set in,” Alfred Gray said.

Housing experts said that while senior centers such as Leisure World are allowed to restrict housing for elderly people only, it remains unclear whether such communities can deny services.

“Any time you have differential treatment for different residents, that raises concerns that there might at least be the inference of discriminatory practices taking place,” said Cliff Dover, compliance manager with the Fair Housing Council of Orange County, a nonprofit fair-housing advocacy group.