Court Upholds Placentia’s Bid to Keep Out X-Rated Peep Show

A business owner who caused a stir in north Orange County when he tried to open Placentia’s first X-rated peep show has lost his fight in court, city officials revealed.

City Atty. John Harper told the City Council last week that an Orange County Superior Court judge dismissed the lawsuit by Dynavid Ltd. Inc., which sought to open what City Administrator Roger Kemp once called a “full-service dirty book store”--featuring live nude entertainment, sexual gadgets and adult movies and magazines.

Now the issue “has gone bye-bye; it’s dead,” Kemp said.

Although the city’s legal battle with Dynavid is over, the dispute has left its mark: Placentia and neighboring Yorba Linda have adopted laws regulating adult entertainment as a result of the community reaction that followed Dynavid’s request.

Last January, some 175 residents from Placentia, Yorba Linda, Anaheim and Fullerton crowded into the Placentia council’s chamber to voice their opposition to the business. Most who spoke cited moral reasons for their distaste to the proposal. Some became emotional and fought back tears as they addressed the council.

Lee Grant, an attorney representing Dynavid, argued that the city was acting arbitrarily in denying a license partially based on moral grounds. He also said his client had complied with city codes and revised the proposal to overcome various city objections. The revised plan, for example, made peep booths accessible to the handicapped.

After the city’s rejection, Grant promptly filed a lawsuit accusing the city of infringing on First Amendment rights.

The city then filed a cross-complaint saying that Dynavid had gone ahead with construction plans for the business on the 1600 block of East Orangethorpe Avenue without proper permits. City officials accused Dynavid of sending construction workers “in the middle of the night” to work at the Atwood Plaza store.

On Feb. 6, Orange County Court Commissioner Jane Myers granted the city a restraining order ordering all construction work to stop. At the time, Kemp said, the order “would preclude them from doing night work unless they were wearing miners’ caps and carrying flashlights.”

Since Judge Tully Seymour dismissed Dynavid’s lawsuit against the city on Aug. 20, the city’s cross-complaint is now moot, Harper said Friday.

Neither Grant nor his client, Van Nuys businessman Raymond Pistol of Dynavid, could be reached for comment.

Both Grant and Pistol had argued that X-rated material already exists in the city in the form of adult videotapes and adult magazines, which are easily accessible.