Suit That Bar Won Against Police Is Seen as Significant

It opened in November, 1984, as McGuire’s. Its name was changed to Mac’s Landing by owners Don and Nancy McGuire after gays began frequenting the Garden Grove bar.

It closed June 1, 1985, after what the owners called a month of police harassment that included taking flash photographs of patrons entering and leaving and discouraging customers by parking a police car for long periods in front of the tavern.

Last month, a federal jury awarded Don McGuire, a 13-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department, a $110,000 judgment against the City of Garden Grove and six police officers, including Police Chief Francis Kessler, who were held personally liable. The city is seeking a new trial.

Orange County gay leaders consider the decision especially significant because it is a rare example of owners of a gay bar fighting the police. With a substantial investment hanging in the balance, owners usually decide “it’s better to do what the cops want,” a bartender at another Garden Grove gay bar said.

The McGuires are now in Kentucky and cannot be reached for comment, according to their attorney, Michael Cisarik. But according to Cisarik, McGuire owned three other bars that did not have predominantly gay clienteles at the same time he owned Mac’s Landing, and none of the others encountered problems with police.

Kessler said through a spokesman that he and other police officers will not comment on the Mac’s Landing case because of the appeal.

Cisarik said the judgment is significant because Kessler, Lt. Kenneth Adair and Lt. John Urbanowski were ordered to pay $10,000 each in compensatory damages and another $7,000 each in punitive damages. The city will cover the compensatory damages, Cisarik said, but the punitive damages will have to be paid by the officers out of their own pockets.

Three patrol officers, Mark Hutchinson, Dennis Stanfield and Frank White, also were held liable, but no money judgments were ordered against them personally.

History of Crackdowns

“What we had was a history of these kinds of crackdowns,” Cisarik said. “Jurors basically thought it was the policy in the city, and we introduced evidence that went back to 1977, when police officers were calling gays faggots and queers.”

But Scott Whitcomb, an attorney representing the city, contends that the trial judge erroneously allowed the plaintiff to offer evidence of attitudes that no longer exist.

Cisarik said, however, that he believed some of the historical testimony was particularly telling. He pointed to testimony by Kessler that related to attitudes within the department before he became chief in 1976. In a deposition, Kessler described his predecessor as an “old military hand” who had encouraged older “kick-ass and take-names type of cops.”

On the witness stand, Kessler stated that only a few of these “older cops” remained on the force. Cisarik then asked Kessler how long each of the officers named in the Mac’s Landing lawsuit had been on the force. Garden Grove personnel records show that four of the five officers involved had been on the force at least 10 years.

“It was pretty evident to me that the old attitudes didn’t change,” Cisarik said. “They (police) knew they had a gay community, and they singled out McGuire’s bar.”