City Rethinks Strategy in Costly Adult Theater Fight

Facing a judge’s order calling for $50,000 in attorney’s fees, some Santa Ana officials conceded Thursday that they are ready to abandon the city’s 10-year legal battle to close the X-rated Mitchell Brothers Theatre.

The unanimous sentiment against the theater is still there at City Hall. But for the first time, some City Council members were acknowledging publicly Thursday that the more than 40 lawsuits filed against the theater may be a hopeless--and costly--cause. The lawsuits have cost the city more than $400,000 so far.

On Wednesday, Superior Court Judge Claude M. Owens awarded the owners of the theater $50,000 in attorney’s fees in one of the cases filed by the city. Superior Court Judge Robert J. Polis has ruled that the city owes attorney’s fees in another case but has not yet decided on an amount. Mitchell Brothers attorney Tom Steel has requested $328,000 for that case.

‘This Is Ineffective’

“I think we all agree that this is ineffective. So I’m not in favor of continuing a fruitless court battle,” Councilman Miguel Pulido Jr. said. “This has gone 10-plus years now, and the city needs so many other things. I think you reach a point where you have to say no more good money after bad.”

Pulido, like all the council members contacted, stressed that he is still opposed to the adult theater, but he said he believes that the First Amendment provides it absolute protection. He said the city may want to look at other options, such as redevelopment of the Honer Plaza shopping center on West 17th Street where the theater is located.

“It’s a sobering signal, but the need to be rid of the theater remains,” Councilman Dan Griset said. “We’ll have to review our legal strategy to see if there are alternate ways of being done with the theater.”

Griset said the public outcry manifested in letters and impassioned anti-pornography speeches at city meetings will probably be tempered by the reality of cold, hard cash.

“Huge financial costs do affect the feelings of people about civil liberties, and I think we have to weigh the costs of the strategy against the prospects of being rid of the theater,” he said.

Griset said “some kind of real estate strategy” may be the best route for the city. The theater’s lease runs out in three years.

“The overriding reality is that we’re getting nowhere after 10 years in this effort to oust the Mitchell Brothers through the courts,” Councilman Wilson B. Hart said. “Now we’re financing their side of the lawsuit. It’s untenable, and we cannot continue to do this.

“It reaches the point that we’re squandering taxpayers’ money. . . . That isn’t to say we’re soft on pornography or we don’t see the Mitchell Brothers as a blighting influence. We’re not abandoning our quest; we’re simply going to have to find another route.”

At the First Christian Church west of the theater, anti-Mitchell Brothers sentiment runs high. Many churchgoers have walked picket lines during the years, and a former church leader, the Rev. Norman Conner, was a vocal opponent. But the new pastor, the Rev. Jim Fenderson, said he believes that it’s futile to fight adult theaters in the courts.

Fenderson stressed that he isn’t soft on pornography either. “Absolutely not,” he said. “If it were to shut down tonight, it would not be too soon.”

Fenderson is the former pastor of a church in Hayward, in Northern California, that also was near a Mitchell Brothers theater. The City of Hayward finally gave up on efforts to close that theater, he said.