2 Hosts at Nude Party Cited for Running Unlicensed Business

Undercover police, costumed as police officers sporting toy guns and badges, raided a clothing-optional Halloween party Saturday night at a Sunland house where two people were cited for running an unlicensed business.

Private Club From 1970s

Police said a group called Sandstone Reflections uses the house for parties and seminars at which many participants go naked. The group ran a private club in the Malibu mountains during the 1970s where nudity and sex were practiced openly, and which was used as a backdrop for author Gay Talese’s best-selling 1980 book, “Thy Neighbor’s Wife.”

The raid took place after Councilman Howard Finn’s office complained to police last week about a “sex club” operating in the hilly, secluded 9600 block of Green Verdugo Drive, an area where dogs and horses run on large, rambling lots.

Complaints Cited

Finn said Sunday that he was responding to neighbors’ complaints about parking problems and about nudity at the house.

But several local residents, who described the parties as running from Friday afternoons to Sunday nights, said they have no objection to the nudity, only concerns about parking congestion and fire hazards raised by visitors to the brushy area.

“I don’t have any objection to it. I wish they had invited me,” said Jeffrey Granzow, a resident of Green Verdugo Drive.

“We live on this street for a specific purpose--to quell the city life and for freedom and privacy,” Granzow said. “They’re just having a good time. I think the police made too much of it.”

Police said two officers, male and female, entered the party about 9 p.m. Saturday after paying a $55 admission fee. They wore regulation blue uniforms, play guns, cowboy hats and toy badges.

‘Various Stages of Undress’

About 40 people--some nude, others “in various stages of undress,” including G-strings, towels and lingerie--were served wine and food, police Sgt. Steve Moede said.

Four more police officers and one inspector from the city Department of Building and Safety then entered the house, Moede said, and the building inspector cited a man and woman for conducting a business in a private residence.

Their names were not released, but 1984 Los Angeles County property tax records list a couple, George Pettit Jr. and Elizabeth Pettit, as the owner-residents.

A woman at the house said the Pettits were away Sunday and unavailable for comment.

Police said it is not illegal to hold nude parties in a private home but that it is illegal to charge admission without a business license.

Finn said the raid should “send a message to anybody who’s abusing residential areas.”

‘Sandstone III’

“My guess is that once they’re found out, since this place is Sandstone III, they’ll find a Sandstone IV, and it will be out of my district, preferably out of the City of Los Angeles,” Finn said.

Yet residents of the block maintained that their concerns center on the possibility of fires started by party guests and on cars clogging the narrow street.

Opposition by some neighbors jelled six months ago when a petition was circulated against the Pettits, citing nudity and the potential for fire and theft. The petition was given to Finn’s office.

However, Peggy Pickett, a resident of the block for 14 years, said, “I don’t care if they go nude up there as long as they don’t come down here and parade in front of me.”

Pickett, who describes the parties up the block from her as “a little shady,” said they started some eight years ago.

“They seem to be people who could be nurses, lawyers and councilmen, whatever,” said her son, Mike Pickett. “They’re not low-life kind of people.”