Seniors’ Complex Finally Gets Cable

After a nearly eight-year battle to obtain what has become a basic amenity in many households, a group of senior residents in a 100-unit apartment building will finally get their wish: cable television.

Intervention by city officials was needed to break a deadlock between Continental Cablevision and the owner of Tustin Gardens, a complex on 6th Street.

“The residents had been fighting to get it for years,” Councilman Jim Potts said. “When they finally came to me about it, I said, ‘What, you don’t have cable? I don’t believe it.’ ”

Several residents of Tustin Gardens said they are glad the long fight is over.

“We’d get new managers every couple of years who would try to get cable put in, but they’d leave and nothing would get done,” longtime resident Jack Grayce said.

“We’ve had 15 to 20 people die in the time it’s taken to get cable in that building.”

Officials from Continental Cablevision were not available for comment Tuesday.

But according to documents filed by Lois E. Jeffrey, Tustin’s city attorney, the apartment’s managers and company officials had been negotiating for the past several months to bring cable service to the building.

According to Jeffrey, the most recent conflict stemmed from uncertainty caused by the federal Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996, which could make video programming available through telephone lines in the next three to five years.

The cable company, Jeffrey said, wanted an exclusive six-year contract to ensure a return on its investment, but Tustin Gardens management wanted a three-year contract.

City officials recently stepped in and were able to secure a five-year deal for the building, Potts said.

“I’m very pleased,” Potts added. “A lot of those residents are paraplegic and quadriplegic, and they can’t just go to the video store.”