The City of Malibu has filed a lawsuit against the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) and its Director Jennifer Kent seeking the revocation of eight licenses for alcohol and drug rehab facilities that have been issued to various entities that function together as Passages Malibu, on Meadows Court in western Malibu.
Under California law, licensed non-medical drug and alcohol residential rehab facilities that serve six or fewer patients may operate in a single-family home. The City has complained to the state for years that Passages Malibu does not comply with this license scheme and therefore should be licensed as an “integrated facility,” which is not permitted in a residential zone.
“Suing the state is about the last thing we wanted to do,” said Mayor John Sibert. “But after numerous meetings and letters and assurances, we find ourselves in the same position: Passages Malibu is operating a small hospital facility smack in the middle of a residential zone and the state licensing agency is turning a blind eye to it.”
In the complaint filed on February 23, City Attorney Christi Hogin used Passages Malibu’s own promotional materials to make the City’s case:
Passages Malibu describes itself as the “number one rehab in the world” whose “flagship drug and alcohol treatment center is in Malibu, California on a 10-acre property that features a breathtaking Pacific Ocean view, tranquil setting, and palatial estates that house [its] residential and treatment facilities.” Passages Malibu clients are “assigned” a “ten-person team of therapists and doctors,” including “psychologists, family therapists, trainers, acupuncturists, hypnotherapists, spiritual counselors and many others.”
Yet, despite Passages Malibu’s promotion of its operations in the City of Malibu as a comprehensive, sprawling, singular rehab center, and despite evidence supporting that characterization, the California Department of Health Care Services has outright refused to regulate Passages as a consolidated facility or apply the license requirements for the 10-acre, eight unit facility. Instead, on the basis of shell LLCs and self-created unofficial street addresses, the Department issued eight separate licenses, authorizing eight separate programs each in a single-family home serving fewer than seven residents. Passages Malibu, by its own admission and advertisements, operates one integral facility.
By this lawsuit, the City of Malibu seeks to compel the Department to perform its statutory duty pursuant to Health & Safety Code §11834.01 to license Passages Malibu as an integral adult alcoholism or drug abuse recovery or treatment facility in accordance with state law.
The lawsuit follows the City’s disappointment last month when the state announced that after its tour of the Passages Malibu facility, the state regulators were satisfied that there were, in fact, eight separate rehab programs, each operating under a single family residential program license.
To see the DHCS reports on the Passages facilities, visit http://www.malibucity.org/
