NIMBY Super Lawyer Seeking Punitive Damages in NJ Federal Suit

Addiction Treatment Industry Newswire

01/23/2014 -ATIN – Addiction treatment’s NIMBY super lawyer Steve Polin is seeking punitive damages in federal court from one of New Jersey’s wealthiest communities on behalf of Oxford House, the nation’s largest, and in recent years very rapidly expanding, network of non-profit sober living homes. The demand comes out of a lawsuit filed this week by Polin, D.C.-based counsel who has become the go-to guy when it comes to fighting addictions NIMBYism, that pits Oxford House against the borough of Rumson, an action that arises out of a, frankly, harrowing series of events that occurred

in the tony community throughout much of last year. Communities all along the Jersey Shore, and indeed nationwide from the rolling hills of Vermont to icy Minnesota, have been beset by an alarming spate of opiate addiction driven by widespread availability of the some of the cheapest and most potent heroin ever to become available in American history.

Virulent NIMBY Discrimination

Rumson, located about an hour south of NYC and home to some of the oldest and biggest money on the East Coast, awoke one day in October to the news of tragedy; a death by heroin overdose of a young man at a sober living home. The town, including its officials, politicians and police force, had apparently been virtually unaware of even the presence of a sober living home, an Oxford House, within its midst until the overdose. And the young man who died, it turns out, is not as had been widely speculated upon apparently from one of the wealthiest families in New Jersey, a family that for decades has quietly struggled with incredible tragedy from opiate addiction, according to a local resident. The resident told Treatment Magazine that instead the victim of the heroin overdose was a young man also from local environs whose family has been thoroughly crushed by the addiction tragey and who are currently suffering greatly from the death by overdose. Upon that event, Rumson quickly erupted in a virulent spate of NIMYism, to which Polin’s lawsuit is a response and seeks to address. Incredibly, authorities were called to the Oxford House yet again, on Dec 17^ththis time, when another overdose occurred, which prompted Rumson to file a lawsuit seeking to shut-down the Oxford House, a suit that was unsuccessful in achieving temporary injunctive relief against the Oxford House.

Rumson Blind-Eyes

The blindness to what’s going on around them of the Rumson residents, who in meetings were virulently outspoken in their

opinions about not wanting those with addictions issues living amongst them, has been over-the-top, as is typical and mirrors similar NIMBY battles that are erupting nationwide. For example, pictured here is a dejected young man obviously in a situation in which addiction has overwhelmed him and put him in a spot so many people with addiction have found themselves in one time or another. Except this young man is standing outside HIS MOTHER’S!! mansion in Rumson after being charged with burglarizing a nearby home not an hour earlier. The unfortunate young man, obviously in need of the kind of help and support that Oxford Houses provide, was also charged with illegal drug possession, forgery of prescription blanks, possession of stolen property, theft and on and on. Make no mistake, pictured here is tragedy in the making … and this young man was released from the police station on bond… think of the many young people – it’s getting to be in the millions – not so fortunate.

READ OUR PREVIOUS STORY ON RUMSON OXFORD HOUSE BATTLES

READ OUR ‘DIGITAL E-ZINE’ SEPT 2013 NIMBY SPECIAL ISSUE

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