Owner of Bear Cabaret Drops Battle Against Ban on Topless Shows

An Agoura Hills nightclub operator who opened a gay bar in retaliation for being refused a permit for a topless bar has given up her fight against the bare-bosom ban.

Madeline DiTrapani has dropped a $10-million lawsuit in federal court against city officials she had accused of violating her civil rights by enacting an ordinance prohibiting topless entertainment within 660 feet of the Ventura Freeway.

Her club, called the Bear Cabaret, is 50 feet from the freeway. It had been the only business oriented to so-called adult entertainment in the affluent community of 20,000.

DiTrapani’s suit last year capped a running battle with Agoura Hills officials over the issue of topless entertainment at her nightclub.

When the town incorporated in 1982, the city refused to recognize an earlier operating permit for the Bear Cabaret issued by Los Angeles County.

Balked at Permit

Agoura Hills officials ruled that topless dancing required a conditional-use permit from the city, but they balked at issuing one for the nightclub.

DiTrapani countered by covering up pictures of shapely female dancers on the club’s outdoor signs and turning the nightclub into a bar catering to homosexuals.

Angered by that move, City Council last year outlawed adult entertainment in the freeway corridor on grounds that sexually oriented establishments detract from the beauty of the area.

DiTrapani, of Westlake Village, alleged in her suit that the freeway area is cluttered with “unsightly commercial uses” less attractive than her nightclub.

But DiTrapani agreed to drop the suit last week, a spokeswoman for the U. S. District Court in Los Angeles said Wednesday.

DiTrapani refused to discuss the case when reached at the Bear Cabaret.

“I’m still open, that’s all I can say,” said the proprietress, who has previously acknowledged that homosexual business was poor and topless dancers were needed to draw customers into her nightclub.

No Injunction

Mitchell Abbott, an assistant city attorney who handled the case for Agoura Hills, said DiTrapani dropped the suit after failing to win a pretrial injunction against the city from U. S. District Judge Pamela A. Rymer.

“The judge’s ruling on the injunction motion was so emphatic and so comprehensive that it left little doubt . . . how the judge would rule when it came to trial on Aug. 19,” Abbott said.

In her ruling, Rymer cited a February U. S. Supreme Court case that upheld the constitutionality of a Renton, Wash., ordinance that restricts the location of adult business in that Seattle suburb, Abbott said.

He said Agoura Hills has invited DiTrapani to apply for a permit to open her topless bar somewhere else in the city, adding that 45% of the commercial area in the eight-square-mile town is outside the freeway corridor.

All DiTrapani has to do to get a permit is to find a site that is sufficiently buffered from residential areas and schools, he said.