The Political Landscape:

Sen. Tom Harman’s most recent bill on residential recovery homes failed, but Newport Beach officials found some solace in the progress it made.

This time, Harman’s legislation — Senate Bill 268 — actually made it out of the Senate and to the Assembly’s Health Committee where it failed on an 11-2 vote against it. Assemblywoman Audra Strickland (R-Thousand Oaks) and Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher (R-San Diego) voted for it.

“One of the goals of residential recovery is allowing for the full integration of genuine treatment homes into neighborhoods,” Harman said in a news release. The bill “was a compromise measure that would have smoothed that process while preserving the character of the neighborhoods. It is a shame the committee failed to pass it.”

The bill would have given Newport Beach more oversight of recovery homes. Basically, it would encourage recovery-home operators to come to the city first for a permit so they’d know whether their proposal is up to the city’s zoning code. Now they can go to the state for the permit, and the state does not know the city’s zoning and doesn’t care, either. This leads to recovery-home operators finding out after the fact that there’s a zoning problem and then the legal problems ensue as the city pushes for compliance, Assistant City Manager Dave Kiff said.

The bill also would make the operators get a permit from the city’s fire department every year. Now all they have to do is get the permit from the city and then each year mail in the same permit to the state, which rubber-stamps it, meaning there’s no annual inspection or update.

“We were disappointed in the vote [Tuesday], but, actually, this bill got farther than any other group-home bill we’ve ever sponsored,” Kiff said.

Harman was at least heartened that the health committee allowed for the legislation to be retooled and brought back for reconsideration.

In other recovery-home news this week, city officials are taking aim at Newport Coast Recovery. City officials allege, among other things, that the recovery home has had underage patients. A hearing on the allegations was held Tuesday, but the hearing officer has asked for more information before making a decision on whether to deny a use permit, Kiff said.

When enforcing laws on massages, there’s a rub

When Costa Mesa’s City Council approved a temporary ban on new massage parlors and expansion of existing ones Tuesday, it wasn’t exactly an open-and-shut case.

On one hand, the council members were distressed at the mounting evidence that the city seems to have an inordinately large number of massage parlors and several of them seem to be obvious fronts for prostitution. On the other, a few worried that a moratorium could hurt legitimate businesses.

In asking for the 45-day moratorium, police said they would continue to allow existing massage parlors to renew their permits and replace workers so current businesses can maintain their workforces, but Carol Warren, who runs Massage Envy on Harbor Boulevard, said it might not be that simple.

The permitting process for new employees takes a lot of time and money. If a parlor were to wait until an employee quits to start looking for a new one, the position could go vacant for months while a new masseuse takes the test and goes through the background check, Warren said.

And if a business wanted to expand to meet demand, it couldn’t, she said.

Warren’s business is part of a well-known and growing nationwide chain. The one in Costa Mesa is approaching its four-year anniversary in the shopping center near Henry’s Market.

“I think they’ve taken too broad an approach to addressing a very serious issue,” Warren said.

Although some illegitimate operations have “tarnished” the reputation of the massage industry, many of the parlors are legitimate, she added, and cracking down on them would limit employment opportunities for people who have invested time and money in massage training during a time of high unemployment.

To Warren, it’s an enforcement issue and the police should have the legal tools to eliminate crooked businesses without hurting straight ones.

Part of the problem is discretion, Police Chief Chris Shawkey said.

“Right now we only deny permits if they falsify or omit information or if they have past convictions,” he said.

Newport Beach and other local cities are allowed to be more subjective in their decisions to grant or deny permits.

For Georgia Fox some of the parlors in her area have gone too far and she’s happy to see the moratorium. Two in particular have all-male clientele and do business at odd hours, and “we know what’s going on there,” she said.

Police have indicated they will likely ask for an extension of the 45-day moratorium, because it’s not long enough to allow for an overhaul of city codes. Before it gets authorized, the issue will come back to the council for a public hearing in the next month.

City: State taking money violates CA constitution

Costa Mesa has joined a group of other California cities in agreeing to participate in litigation against the state to keep $1.8 million of gas tax money that usually goes to the city from being taken by the state.

Taking the money, which is usually used for transportation projects, could have an even bigger impact than just the $1.8 million, according to City Manager Allan Roeder, because the city uses the funds to leverage other money (like Measure M funds).

“We very much believe that this is a violation of at least the state constitution and probably two or three other voter-approved ballot propositions,” Roeder said.

During the state’s protracted budget crisis, the League of California Cities has been constantly at odds with the state as the state tries to sap local funds to fill in its multibillion-dollar budget deficit.

Most recently, after the budget-balancing ballot initiatives put up by the legislature failed, cities were told they would have to prepare to give up 8% of their property tax revenues for the state to borrow, which amounts to more than $3 million for Costa Mesa and close to $6 million for Newport Beach.