Posted on 05/02/2002 12:31:55 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
An abortion clinic near San Diego is scrambling to find a new home after owners of a medical building where the clinic has been housed since 1987 refused to renew its lease.
The Abbey Company, a California-based real-estate firm that owns the medical building located at 8881 Fletcher Parkway in La Mesa, said in a letter to the Family Planning Associates Medical Group a year ago that the presence of the clinic was "detrimental."
David Gullen, who is listed as a press contact for Abbey, declined to comment on the development.
"We don't talk to newspapers," he told WorldNetDaily, before abruptly hanging up the phone.
But according to an April 25, 2001, letter to a local pro-life group from former Abbey regional manager Nancy Eagle, the real-estate firm's decision to kill the lease was a long time coming.
"My company has come to the conclusion that having Family Planning as a tenant is a detriment," Eagle wrote in a letter to Cheryl Sullinger of Life Coalition, a pro-life umbrella group. "We have decided not to renew Family Planning's lease when it comes up for renewal on April 30, 2002."
Troy Newman, a spokesman for Operation Rescue West, which is associated with Life Coalition, told WorldNetDaily the real-estate company wasn't doing his group any favors. But he said he considers it a victory nonetheless.
"It's not that they like us all that much," Newman said of the decision to yank the clinic's lease. "This is just a business decision. It's bad for business."
Newman said his group picketed the clinic practically every day since it came to the area, and Abbey – which has pleaded unsuccessfully in the past with the pro-life organization to cease its demonstrations – "is losing other tenants."
In her letter, Eagle asked Sullinger for "cooperation" in helping Abbey rent the 6,700-square foot office area once the clinic had vacated.
She voiced concerns that if Operation Rescue West continued its protests, it would be harder to rent the space to another business, eliminating any clinic attempt to "holdover or try to pressure us into extending their lease."
"Since your anti-abortion protests have caused potential tenants to go elsewhere, we would appreciate it if you could curtail your protests so that we may find a new tenant for the large vacancy created" by the loss of the "excellent paying" clinic.
Newman said that request was refused, and he said group members even began to picket a new site considering offering a lease to the clinic once demonstrators found out about it. The lease owners eventually decided to pull their offer to Family Planning Associates, the pro-life activist said.
As of yesterday, though, staffers were still answering phones at the La Mesa clinic. Employees at the clinic denied knowing anything about the eviction. Attempts to reach clinic press officials for comment went unanswered.
"What [the clinic staff] is doing now is refusing to leave," Newman said, adding that an "insider" he was in contact with at Abbey "says the company is livid."
Family Planning Associates Medical Group was started in 1969 by physicians Edward C. Allred and Kenneth L. Wright, according to information posted at the company's website.
Must be...=^)
This guy is gonna find out just how much a detriment it is when he stands in judgement before our Heavenly Father.
I think this guy is Gloria Allred's husband if I am not mistaken.
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