She Considers It a Victory for the Ages : Leisure World: Suit helps change rules at Seal Beach community that limited privileges of permanent residents younger than 55.

SEAL BEACH — One of the last things Alfred Gray told his wife before he died of cancer last October in their Leisure World apartment was to fight for her rights and to drink a toast to him when she won.

Mary Gray did both. In fact, she and friends drank several champagne toasts to the memory of her 75-year-old husband whose two-year campaign to change discriminatory rules at the retirement community recently ended in victory.

“He told me, ‘Don’t quit, don’t give up. It’s something we started and needs to be done,’ ” said Mary Gray, 53. “My only regret is that Al wasn’t here to see it happen, but he would have been very satisfied with the results.”

Victory for the Grays has come in the form of a settlement of a lawsuit filed on their behalf last year by the State Department of Fair Employment and Housing that accused the community of age discrimination.

The agreement overturns a 32-year policy at the Leisure World that prohibited permanent residents younger than 55, usually spouses of older residents in the community, from using a variety of facilities. Those included the swimming pool, bus system and golf course. Residents younger than 55 also were excluded from membership in any of Leisure World’s 200 clubs.

The settlement required 19 policy changes that went into effect Feb. 1, most of them relating to a new rule that ensures that all permanent residents at the 6,500-unit community receive full access to facilities and programs regardless of age, said attorney Carole Grossman, who handled the lawsuit for the state.

The community also had prohibited permanent residents younger than 55 from co-owning their homes with their spouses and required them to pay an extra $20-per-month fee for an entrance card to the gated community on Seal Beach Boulevard. Both of those 10-year-old policies have been scrapped, said Howard McCurdy, president of the Golden Rain Foundation, which runs Leisure World in Seal Beach.

McCurdy said the rules were designed to maintain the complex’s focus as a 55-and-older retirement community.

The changes mean that for the first time since Mary Gray moved to Leisure World five years ago, she and 50 other “underage” residents can enjoy their community as fully as their older mates and neighbors.

McCurdy said the policy changes also could lead to some increase in couples that include a younger mate.

So far, five new couples with “underage” mates have moved into the complex since the changes were made Feb. 1. Two of the couples said they would not have moved in if the old policies had been in place, he said.

An increase in the younger set is a development that some of the 8,600 Leisure World residents fear might change the tranquil character of the community that was built and designed for seniors in 1962, said McCurdy, 80.

“I think it’s very important to have senior housing limited to seniors,” he said. “These people go around in here with canes and crutches and three-wheelers. We don’t need hot-rod kids in here.”

McCurdy said, though, that so far, most younger residents have blended in well and some older residents’ fears about the impact of the policy change have not materialized.

“It’s not a matter of a young woman wearing her bikini to the pool and causing six heart attacks,” McCurdy said. “No, that hasn’t happened, though some of us old men are delicate.”

McCurdy said the bigger fear among older residents is an increase in crime.

“Murders, burglaries and drive-by shootings--who commits those crimes?” McCurdy asked. “It’s not the older people. It’s the young people.”

Two other Leisure Worlds, in Laguna Hills and Walnut Creek, operate independently from the community in Seal Beach. They did not have such restrictions on residents younger than 55, McCurdy said. The settlement, which came in January, applied only to Leisure World in Seal Beach.

Gray, who was supported in her litigation by four other couples who filed complaints with the state, said most of her neighbors were in favor of the changes and are glad that she can socialize with them fully, especially now that she must cope with the loss of her husband.

Gray said she has joined Leisure World’s computer and genealogy clubs and has begun golfing lessons at Leisure World’s nine-hole course. Though she does not particularly care for swimming, she expects that others who have recently won the right to use the community’s pool will splash away when the weather gets warmer.

“I have the full rights as a full citizen to enjoy the things the others do,” Gray said. “I’d always considered myself a second-class citizen before.”

Alex Brett, 72, who supported the Grays by filing his own complaint with the state last year, said the most important change for him is that he is assured that his 50-year-old wife will have the security of owning their home if he dies before she does.

“The most important thing that we have now that we didn’t have before is peace of mind,” Brett said. The Bretts also have been able to join the community’s drama club together, he said.

Gray said that she and her husband decided to pursue the issue not just so that she could enjoy the benefits of the community, but also for the principle of equal treatment. The couple filed their complaint in September, 1993.

“We were all intelligent, good people, all assets to this community,” Gray said. “It was unfair to single us out and say just because you’re a particular age you have no rights in here.”

Under state law, senior complexes are allowed to restrict housing for elderly people, with some exceptions for spouses and mates for example, Grossman said. But they are not allowed to deny services to any permanent residents whatever their age, she said.

Although the settlement applies only to Leisure World in Seal Beach, Grossman said she hopes it will send a message to other retirement communities “that discrimination will not survive a challenge.”

“I am pleased we were able to resolve this issue, which was a painful one for the complainants and a very puzzling one for the department,” Grossman said. Residents “are now allowed to live as people should be allowed to live. . . . It was clear that all people within the state are entitled to full and equal services.”

McCurdy, who has lived at Leisure World for 18 years, said he and others accept the new policies and hope that Leisure World will remain the peaceful community it has always been.

“It’s a tough balancing act (between residents’ rights),” McCurdy said. “But the law is the law. The fact that we don’t like it is beside the point.”