Drug Rehabilitation

Four movie openings tomorrow officially begin the fall film season. Coming weeks will bring many more. We hope most will find their audiences. Here are some movies showing particular promise:* "Postcards From the Edge" is about a young woman who spends time in a drug rehabilitation center. Carrie Fisher wrote the script from her own novel, and Mike Nichols directed this comedy drama. Meryl Streep plays the daughter, Shirley MacLaine is the mother, and Hollywood is their home. "Postcards From the Edge" opens tomorrow.

Names in the newsThe Land Development Council of the Home Builders Association of Maryland recently presented an award of excellence to G. W. Koch Inc. for Woodberry Farms in Severna Park and to Sturbridge Homes for Tidewater Colony of Annapolis. Koch also won a Silver Merit award for the Preserve at Broad Creek, Annapolis. The Home Builders Association of Maryland is a nonprofit group that conducts governmental relations and educational opportunities for the association and functions as the industry advocate.

An Anne Arundel County judge reduced the sentence yesterday for a 26-year-old Severna Park man who was convicted of assault after he led police on a high-speed chase though four counties in July 1992.But Shawn Alfred Chowanetz, of the 1200 block of Purnell Road, will be released from his eight-year prison sentence only if he is able to get into a drug rehabilitation program and to convince a Frederick County Circuit judge to release him, the Anne Arundel judge said.Judge Raymond G. Thieme, Jr., who sentenced Chowanetz March 29, agreed to put him on five years probation if he is admitted to Second Genesis, in Crownsville, and if a Frederick County judge reduces a 12-year sentence he imposed in the same chase.

A former Woodbine man was sentenced yesterday to six months in jail after he pleaded guilty in Carroll County Circuit Court to possession with intent to distribute marijuana and to maintaining a common nuisance.Judge Francis M. Arnold sentenced Robert T. Salamony, 19, who now lives in Owings Mills, to three-year concurrent sentences on each charge before suspending all but six months of each term.Arnold said he would allow Salamony to enter an inpatient drug rehabilitation program while in custody and ordered that he be placed on four years of probation after his release.

Anne Arundel County police have charged a Lothian teen-ager with second-degree murder in the April 3 rock-throwing incident that killed a Deale father of three as he was on his way home from work.Homicide detectives spent more than two months chasing down hundreds of leads in the death of Kevin Michael Gallagher, 38, before they arrested Jason Wayne Wyvill, 16, who lives in Lyons Creek Mobile Estates.Anne Arundel detectives and Hampton, Va., police arrested the youth at a drug rehabilitation center in Hampton late Tuesday and charged him as an adult, said Anne Arundel police Lt. Harry Collier.

George Gregory "Blue" Epps, a recovering addict and an addiction counselor whose struggle was depicted in "The Corner," the book which later became a critically acclaimed HBO miniseries, died of undetermined causes Nov. 15 at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The Highlandtown resident was 59. "We are waiting for the results of an autopsy for a cause of death," said his wife of nine years, the former Valerie Bolling. Mr. Epps was born in Baltimore and raised in West Baltimore. As a youngster, he showed a talent for painting and drawing.

A center for recovering drug addicts has opened on a residential block in Charles Village in apparent violation of city zoning laws, sparking opposition from neighbors.The center, at 3129 N. Calvert St., was opened a month ago by Everett K. Tooles, an Annapolis man who calls himself "pastor" and, according to a rental application he gave his landlady, represents the "Great Harvest Ministry."City Councilman Anthony J. Ambridge said he told Mr. Tooles that the house was operating in violation of zoning laws and that a City Council ordinance would need to be passed before the rehabilitation center could operate legally.

Commissioners continue road closing discussionCarroll commissioners agreed yesterday to continue a discussion about closing part of Kays Mill Road at a public works meeting next Tuesday.Commissioner Elmer C. Lippy said he promised some residents of Kays Mill Road, in the Finksburg area, that he would get more information about the road closing before making a decision.Some residents objected at a public hearing May 13 to a county plan to close 1,300 feet of Kays Mill Road to realign the road near the 2300 to 2400 blocks.

THE DOOR that long ago opened to allow church groups to get government money is now likely to open wider. That's not entirely a bad thing, although it calls for caution. President Bush has reignited the debate over separation of church and state with his proposals to encourage nonprofits, including religious "armies of compassion" to help the government fight poverty and other social ills. It's an especially healthy debate in that the divide not only protects against favoritism toward a specific religion, but shields religion from undue government interference.

The state is expected to write a check for more than $1.1 million to the lawyers for a drug treatment program that successfully sued the Maryland Port Administration over its effort to deny the group a berth for a former Navy ship. The settlement between the attorney general's office and Project Life Inc. would bring to a close a five-year battle over the group's plan to offer a shipboard drug treatment program at North Locust Point marine terminal. The deal will be brought to the Board of Public Works for approval Wednesday.