Bookstore Battle to Go to Supreme Court

Unsatisfied with an appellate court ruling that the city cannot force its only adult bookstore to move, the City Council has decided to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The council’s decision late Wednesday to ask the high court to review the case came just six days after a federal appeals court affirmed a lower court’s decision that the city cannot apply its zoning code restrictions on adult bookstores to the Adult Book Store on West 6th Street.

Helen Ebel opened the store in July, 1981. Two months later, the council passed a zoning ordinance that limited adult bookstores to certain commercial zones, generally located along the city’s 6th Street and Main Street commercial districts.

The ordinance also prohibited adult bookstores from locating next to residential areas, or from locating within 500 feet of each other or within 750 feet of a church, school or place where children gather.

U.S. District Judge William P. Gray ruled in January, 1984, that the ordinance left Ebel no reasonable place to relocate, and could not be applied to her store.

Last week, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld Gray’s decision, granting a permanent injunction against enforcing the ordinance on Ebel’s store.

The appellate court also ruled that Corona must pay Ebel’s legal fees for her lawsuit and the city’s appeal, which may amount to $80,000, Roger Diamond, her attorney, said.

Corona’s next step is to ask the Supreme Court to review the case.

The high court accepts only about 3% of the cases it is asked to review. Last year, it reviewed 175 of the 5,006 cases submitted.

The Corona City Council also voted Wednesday night to raise water rates by 10%, but delayed action on a separate increase in the water system’s capital improvement fee. The new rates will cost the average homeowner an additional $2.39 a month, beginning with the November billing.