Court Orders Unlicensed Sitter to Stop Operating

An unlicensed day-care provider in Moorpark has been ordered by a Ventura County Superior Court judge to stop taking children into her home, where inspectors found marijuana in a kitchen cabinet and a BB gun on the refrigerator.

After almost a year of investigation by county officials, Judge Bruce Thompson issued the unusual preliminary injunction on Tuesday, ordering Susan Perez Provencher, 38, to stop providing day care in her home at 6708 Auburn Circle.

“It essentially says she cannot operate a day-care center in this county without a license,” Assistant County Counsel Patti McCourt said. Inspectors’ concern was that Provencher was operating without a license, not about the quality of care in her home, McCourt said.

State law requires a license for anyone who cares for children from more than one family not related to the day-care provider, said Joyce Kauder, a licensing evaluator at the county’s Public Social Services Agency.

But Provencher, who has been baby-sitting neighborhood children for more than four years, said that the state law is too strict. She said Friday that she has been able to offer good care at lower prices than most licensed providers.

Parents pay her $1 an hour, which usually comes to $45 to $55 a week, Provencher said, compared to $75 a week charged by many licensed providers.

One woman who has been leaving her children with Provencher for more than four years said that she chose Provencher after trying licensed day care.

“You hear so often about people who abuse kids,” said Gayle Higgenbotham. “Kids have a safe place here.” She said her opinion is shared by others in the middle-class neighborhood.

State law would allow Provencher, without a license, to watch children from one family along with her two daughters. However, under the court order, she cannot care for other children unless she receives a license, which is expected to take at least six weeks.

McCourt added that this is the first preliminary injunction against a day care provider in Ventura County that she remembers in her four years with the county counsel’s office. County officials began investigating Provencher in March after receiving a complaint, McCourt said. The inspectors still don’t understand why Provencher didn’t cooperate with the investigation and apply for a license before the matter went to court, she said.

“What we were really hoping to do was work with Mrs. Provencher,” McCourt said.

Provencher didn’t apply for a license until Tuesday, the day of the court order. And, on two occasions during the investigation, she refused to allow inspectors inside her home, McCourt said.

After licensing inspectors were turned away from the home on March 5, they returned on April 16 with sheriff’s deputies and a search warrant.

On that visit, “it was discovered that there were nine children in her care, unrelated children,” McCourt said. Except for one infant, the children were at least 6 years old, she said.

The home was not made safe for children, McCourt said. A BB gun was on top of the refrigerator and cans of insecticide and other household poisons were in an unlocked cabinet under the sink, she said.

In addition, licensing inspectors and deputies found a water pipe and about half an ounce of marijuana in a jar in a kitchen cabinet, Detective Ross Bonfiglio said.

Provencher said she was issued a citation for possessing the drug, and later paid a $182 fine.

She did not cooperate with the investigation “mainly because of their approach,” she said. The first time an inspector arrived at the door, “she said she had the authority to come into my home, and I said, ‘No, you don’t.’ ”

The licensing inspector, Margaret Bursett, could not be reached for comment.

Provencher said that the home is safe for children, pointing out the latches on most of her kitchen cabinets.

“They just happened to open the cabinet that was broken,” she said.

Provencher’s husband uses the BB gun to deter cats that stray into the back yard, Provencher said, adding that it was kept out of the children’s sight.

And the marijuana, she said, was “only two joints.” No parents withdrew their children from Provencher’s care after newspapers reported the marijuana find, Provencher said, adding that the parents think that what she does on her own time is her business.