God as Landlord

Lou Gottlieb is a rich retired folk singer who made his pile as a member of the once popular Limeliters. A year ago, Gottlieb decided that he could afford to give away his 30-acre Morning Star ranch near San Francisco. He literally deeded the place to God and turned it into a commune for the world's "religious people."

Unfortunately, the apostles' tents and tree houses violated local health and safety codes. The county district attorney took Gottlieb to court, hoping to make him clean up his rural slum. He refused. The mess, he said, was God's problem, not his.

Last week Superior Court Judge Kenneth Eymann resolved the legal battle by ruling that God has no property rights in the State of California. The law, he wrote, requires that "the grantee must be a person, either natural or artificial, in existence at the time of the conveyance and capable of taking title." Duly voiding God's deed, the judge gave Gottlieb 30 days to police his pad.

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