Still Exercised Over All-Female Spa, He Throws In the Towel

A Studio City man who sued a women’s gym, alleging that it violated sex discrimination laws by refusing to admit him, says he is dropping the suit because he is disgusted with the tactics of lawyers on both sides and because he does not want to intrude on shy women exercisers if he is not wanted.

“As Steve Martin would say . . . ‘Excuse . . . Me,”’ the man, James H. Moore, an apartment house manager, wrote to the manager of the Women Only spa in Studio City.

Moore brought suit against the spa last month under state civil rights laws, saying he had applied for membership and was refused because of his sex. Representatives of the spa said it is designed for women who are uncomfortable wearing exercise clothes around men or who want to avoid “a pickup atmosphere.”

Founded in Woodland Hills three years ago, the spa now has about 10,000 members, mostly in the San Fernando Valley, and other gyms in Studio City, Brentwood and Santa Ana.

“I had not considered anyone but myself,” Moore wrote Monday to the manager of the Studio City club, Roberta Avazian. But, he said, he now realizes “that the women who belong to the spa want the spa to be that way,” without men, “and I want those women of Women Only to have the situation that they desire.”

Moore’s attorney, Gloria Allred--a feminist well known for bringing sex discrimination suits on behalf of women--complained that Moore did not show the spirit necessary for a civil rights activist.

“Every case requiring advances in civil rights has required personal courage on the part of the victim,” Allred said. “Some people are not willing or able to make that sacrifice.

“Obviously, Mr. Moore is not.”

Allred said she sent a petition to Van Nuys Superior Court on Monday, asking to be released as Moore’s attorney, but that she expects to file another such suit “when there is another man who wishes to pursue this lawsuit, and has the requisite stamina and courage.”

Barry C. Groveman, attorney for Women Only, who had complained earlier about Allred’s announcing the suit at a news conference before the spa was informed of it, called Moore’s change of mind “one of the risks of being publicity conscious.

“Perhaps they should have evaluated their positions before they took to the air waves,” Groveman said.

Privacy Called Issue

The issue was not discrimination, but privacy, he said. “The perverted use of a lawsuit in a case like this is no different than a man insisting he wants to use a ladies’ restroom. It is totally permissible and legitimate to exclude women from men’s rooms and men from women’s rooms.”

Moore complained in his letter that Allred did not represent him as he wished. He said she did not appear to counsel him when he was summoned to Groveman’s office to give a deposition, sending an associate instead, “because she was going to be on the Phil Donahue Show.”

He also complained that Groveman and an associate questioned him harshly and made “false accusations” that his suit was a sham.

Groveman agreed that it was “a difficult deposition,” and “a rather aggressive tactic, but it worked.”

Moore wrote that his only regret in abandoning the lawsuit was that he would not have an opportunity to meet Groveman and his associate again “to punch them in the mouth.”

“I still feel I was discriminated against, which is against the law,” Moore, said Tuesday, “but I also realize there are some groups who want closed activities, and there are valid social reasons for that.”