Costa Mesa children’s camp battles city, state over permits as cannabis retailers eye area
For Costa Mesa mom Alison Burchette, Camp Lila is a neighborhood gem, a place where kids ages 3 to 8 can play and partake in a slate of arts classes that introduce tykes to painting, music and the basics of yoga.
Her daughter has taken lessons there, and her 4-year-old son attends daytime sessions. Every time he goes there, she says, his face lights up.
“It is magic in a bottle,” Burchette said of the space, which opened in June on Costa Mesa’s Cabrillo Street. “It’s not only a beautiful mission, but it’s beautiful for the neighborhood.”
Operating from a leased house-like structure east of Newport Boulevard, in a part of town where residential and commercial uses seem to intermix, Camp Lila offers classes in four-hour blocks weekday mornings and afternoons.
Some attend Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, while others go on Tuesdays and Thursdays, owner Katheryn Sherouse explained during a March 25 tour of the facility, showing off an art studio with tiny chairs and easels, a meditation room and outdoor yoga area with mats lined neatly in rows.
“This is my dream — I just want to teach kids art,” said the Costa Mesa resident. “My families love and adore me, my teachers and my program.”
But behind this bucolic scene a battle is brewing over the use and zoning of the property and whether Camp Lila is compliant with Costa Mesa’s municipal code or operating as an illegal day care without the proper city and state permits.
Complicating the picture further is the fact that multiple cannabis businesses are eyeing nearby sites for legal dispensaries in applications filed with the city.
Costa Mesa’s adopted regulations indicate dispensaries may not operate within 1,000 feet of child day cares, K-12 schools and other “sensitive uses.”
They also cannot open within 600 feet of a “youth center,” which the state defines broadly as any facility that hosts recreational or social activities for children but which the Costa Mesa City Council narrowed to exclude dance and martial arts studios, tutoring centers and similar businesses.
Currently, nine pending applications for cannabis dispensaries fall within two-tenths of a mile, roughly 1,000 feet, of Camp Lila, according to a list maintained by the city. Two are within 300 feet.
In this context, defining exactly what kind of business Camp Lila is — and determining whether it can remain open — could be crucial to approving or denying the dispensary permits.
Sherouse keeps a haphazard record of communications with the city and with California’s Department of Social Services, both of which maintain Camp Lila is an illegal day care. She says she hasn’t changed the nature or scheduling of classes since opening, despite alleged conflicting advice from city employees about the site’s zoning and allowable uses.
She claims that, acting on the recommendation of a city staffer who said the site was zoned for residential use, she applied for an in-home day care license through the state in May and was approved three months later. When another city staffer later insisted the property was commercial, she attempted to withdraw or rescind the license on Dec. 30, apparently to no avail.
“Tell me what I need to do, and I will accommodate any request that you ask of me,” she urged of officials.
Although city officials declined an interview, City Atty. Kimberly Hall Barlow confirmed in an email response to a public request for information that a complaint was received Aug. 11 from a neighboring business alleging Camp Lila was an illegal day care.
Since then, code enforcement officers have visited 10 times and issued three violation notices. Eight citations have been sent to Sherouse and the owner of the property, Barlow wrote.
On March 11, a team of uniformed enforcement officers arrived at the property while children were inside to perform a court-ordered inspection of the property. Two weeks later, parents, friends and neighbors held a rally to show support for the business.
Barlow confirmed the Department of Health and Human Services’ Community Care Licensing Division opened an investigation into Camp Lila on Oct. 15 and has sent representatives to the site multiple times, resulting in additional fines.
Costa Mesa’s zoning map indicates 175 Cabrillo St., Camp Lila’s address, is a commercial lot designated for “neighborhood commercial” uses, including administrative and professional and local businesses. On the same block some structures bear business signs, while others appear to be residential.
Dispensaries may legally operate on commercial properties outside of sensitive use buffer zones. In a March 25 statement, city officials stressed the complaint against Camp Lila did not come from “anyone from or related to the cannabis industry.”
But at least one neighbor says after years of people operating in-home businesses without incident, the city has recently begun enforcing commercial-only uses.
Ryan Abbey owns O.C. Spas and Hot Tubs, a business next door to Camp Lila. He bought the property in 1999 and later sold it, staying on as a lessee. In 2012, he opened the business while living there and had no problems until a few months ago.
“The city came in and wanted to go through the house, so we let them. Now there’s something [wrong] about the fence,” said Abbey, who recently changed residences to be safe. “We moved because it was getting too crazy with the city.”
His landlord is now making plans to bring in a cannabis tenant, meaning he’ll have to relocate the established business.
“The architect has already come in here,” Abbey added. “He’s done up all his plans.”
Meanwhile Sherouse, who estimates she’s being fined $200 every day she remains open, has filed claims for damages against Costa Mesa and Social Services. An attorney working on her case said Friday his office is prepared to file lawsuits seeking restraining orders against the agencies.
An administrative hearing on Camp Lila is set for Tuesday, at which time Sherouse says she will plead her case to the city’s development services director.
“I just want to fix it and be able to stop being harassed,” she said.
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