Santa Ana’s Costly Vendetta

In the movie, “Teahouse of the August Moon,” the houseboy Sakini, explaining cultural differences to his American employer, notes that “pornography is a matter of geography.” The Santa Ana City Council is a perfect example of what Sakini was trying to convey.

For the last 10 years, the council has been attempting to close the Mitchell Bros. theater and keep it from showing X-rated films that the city considers pornographic. In the meantime, those same movies are being shown elsewhere--without incident or official harassment. Santa Ana’s efforts have been costly, futile and misguided.

Still, despite a decade of fruitless legal actions that have included seven lawsuits--only one of which was successful--and $225,000 in legal fees thus far, the council appears to have learned nothing. Instead of recognizing the practical as well as philosophical reasons for abandoning its legal vendetta, the council recently voted to spend more public funds on a new program of persecution against the theater.

It authorized paying a private attorney who specializes in anti-pornography litigation another $200,000 to fund a tactic that calls for filing a new lawsuit each week, when the theater changes movies. The idea is to get each new film declared legally obscene.

The city recently lost a legal action that attempted to have one of the theater’s films declared obscene. That, however, has not discouraged it from trying the approach of weekly lawsuits and running the risk of having to pay $1 million or more if it loses and has to reimburse the theater owners for their legal fees.

In voting to continue its legal harassment, the council rejected a settlement worked out by the city attorney and city manager and the theater owners that called for the city to drop its case in return for the theater chain agreeing not to seek attorney’s fees. It’s still not too late for the city to accept that settlement.

The public funds that Santa Ana is spending to fight so-called pornography could be, and should be, better spent on more important things. What is or isn’t pornographic is a matter of personal taste that really can never be resolved satisfactorily by the courts.

And government has no business trying to restrict what adults can see or read. That should be left to the discretion of each person. Attempts to make that choice for them jeopardizes the constitutional freedom of choice granted by the First Amendment.

The Mitchell Bros. movie house is located in a shopping center and is attended by about 150,000 willing adults a year who make the conscious decision to travel to the theater and purchase tickets. The films are not thrust on an unsuspecting public or on minors. The movies shown there may not be great works of art. Nor are they of interest to everyone. Some films will even offend some people and run the risk of being pornographic. But restricting freedom of speech and choice is an even greater danger to a community.

After 10 years, it’s time that Santa Ana stopped spending city money and tying up the courts over an issue best left to individuals.