The Coastal Star December 2016

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December 2016

Serving Hypoluxo Island, South Palm Beach, Manalapan, Ocean Ridge, Briny Breezes, Gulf Stream and Coastal Delray Beach

Holidays

Volume 9 Issue 12

Along the Coast

Feds give cities leeway to decide sober home sites As Delray Beach begins ordinance changes, others in area plan to stand pat By Jane Smith

Holidays, with all the trimmings

Inside

Roberto Bentez and Roberto Baster, Meisner Electric employees, use a cherry picker to construct the 100-foot Christmas tree at Old School Square on Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach. Building the tree is a monthlong community event that brings together all types of workers and volunteers. The volunteers check all 15,000 LED light bulbs, fluff over 3,000 branches and attach them to the tree. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

The U.S. Cavalry arrived last month in the form of a 20-page federal joint statement on sober homes, delivered by U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel. She hoped beleaguered cities in her district and around the country would use the legal guidance to help protect their neighborhoods from over-saturation of the homes while safeguarding the rights of people in recovery. So far, only Delray Beach among south county’s four large coastal municipalities will use the statement when revising its reasonable accommodation ordinance. The local statute covers group recovery homes. “The city will be able to say how many is too many in one neighborhood,” Mayor Cary Glickstein said at the Nov. 10 announcement. Previously, cities had to accept group recovery homes wherever they wanted to be. Now cities can consider two issues when deciding whether to grant a waiver and allow more than three unrelated people to live together. The municipalities can weigh the financial impact group homes have on single-family neighborhoods as See SOBER on page 23

South Palm Beach

Friends on self-appointed mission to keep town’s beach clean By Ron Hayes Oh, those early morning walks on the beach. Is there any better way to greet a day? That cool, silver sand between your toes. Salty breeze stirring the dune grass. Golden sun twinkling off the ocean’s foam. The shampoo bottles, the candy wrappers, the hypodermic needles. “You wouldn’t believe how much crap there is down there,” says Dennis Aten.

“Would you believe toothbrushes?” asks Mike Felice. Aten and Felice are both 66, both retired, both friends and neighbors in the 3500 S. Ocean condo at South Palm Beach’s northern line. You’ll meet them on your morning walk, plastic bags and EZ Reach pincer poles in hand, picking up those bottles, wrappers and hypodermic needles all the way south to the See BEACH on page 15

Mike Felice fills a trash bag with debris as Dennis Aten picks up a flip-flop on the beach. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Inside House of the month

Bermuda-style luxury in Point Manalapan. Page H15

Board game

Rudin Prize

Norton’s biennial contest brings together works by four photographers. Page AT12

Surfboards become works of art with photography by Tony Aruzza. Page AT1


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