Fullerton : Adult-Movie Ordinance Undergoes Revision

In order to make it tougher to mount a court challenge, the City Council has revised a municipal ordinance regulating arcades that show adult movies.

The council voted Tuesday to include all video arcades under its regulations of businesses that show adult movies, not just those that show “sexually oriented films”--language used in the old ordinance.

The law is being contested on constitutional grounds by the Fantasy Book Shoppe, 410 S. Harbor Blvd., the city’s only adult bookstore, which features a peep-show arcade.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Judith Ryan ruled April 16 in favor of Fullerton’s ordinance, but Fullerton City Atty. R. K. Fox said that he proposed the change in wording as a precaution because attorneys for Fantasy are appealing Ryan’s decision.

Since May, 1983, undercover police have arrested about 20 people on charges of lewd conduct and indecent exposure at the bookstore, Police Detective Ronald Moen said.

Jeffrey Douglas, an attorney representing Fantasy, said Wednesday that the business is “the cleanest dirty bookstore in California.”

“It’s a clean store. It’s not the stereotype of what people have in mind of a dirty bookstore,” said Douglas, of the Los Angeles firm of Abelson and Brunon.

Douglas said that Fullerton’s ordinance regulating arcades that showed sexually explicit material violates the First Amendment. The bookstore is appealing the Superior Court ruling on the old ordinance, which Fox said still applies.

While approving the amendment to the city law, Fullerton officials also plan to maintain the old wording to “keep prosecutions alive” on those arrests made since 1983, Fox said.