While it certainly had grounds to close down the Hilltop Manor rooming house, the Salem Licensing Board chose the compassionate course Monday by allowing the troubled facility to remain open while its owners try to get their act together.
The alternative, as Chairman Robert St. Pierre pointed out, would have been to turn the 12 current residents out into the street. Meanwhile, the board made it very clear to owners Paul Dacey and E. James Gaines that if improvements, including the hiring of a new manager, are not made soon, their license to operate a lodging house will be revoked and the place closed.
The facility at 179 Boston St., near the Peabody line, was the scene of two deaths late last year, both of which appeared to be drug-related. This has raised questions — and should draw scrutiny from officials at Lynn District Court, which had been referring people there — as to why Dacey and Gaines were allowed to advertise the place as "a sober living facility with treatment options and regular drug testing."
From testimony Monday night and previously, it appears there was very little in the way of treatment or drug testing being conducted at Hilltop Manor. Yet defendants with a history of drug abuse were being sent there by the court, raising false hope among their families that it might offer a way out of their destructive lifestyles.
Dacey and Gaines didn't deserve a second chance, but their tenants, many of whom would have trouble finding another place to live, do.
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