Week in Review : MAJOR EVENTS, IMAGES AND PEOPLE IN ORANGE COUNTY NEWS : CITIES : Santa Ana Gives Up 11-Year Fight With Adult Theater

It took more than $400,000 for Santa Ana to get a handful of films declared pornographic and banned from further screenings at the Mitchell Brothers Santa Ana Adult Theatre. No judge ever came close to granting what the city really wanted--a padlock on the front door.

The 11-year struggle to shut down the X-rated cinema proved fruitless, admitted City Attorney Edward J. Cooper. The few banned films mattered little to the theater. They already had been shown for a week and there were no plans for a second run anyway. As Mitchell Brothers’ attorney Tom Steel put it, “We’ve got plenty more.”

To make matters worse, Santa Ana had been ordered to pay the San Francisco-based theater chain’s $80,000 in attorney’s fees. And the city was scheduled to appear in court for a hearing on more lawyers’ bills next week.

With all that in mind, the City Council decided Monday to throw in the towel. On a 6-1 vote, the council agreed to settle the dispute and pay Mitchell Brothers $80,000 for their legal costs. The city also will pay $120,000 in return for the cinema removing its marquee on 17th Street and all but the words “Santa Ana Theater” from the building. But they didn’t get the promise from theater owners not to seek renewal of their lease, a feature in a previous settlement agreement that was nixed by the previous city council.

The next day, however, city officials got some heartening news. United Artists Communications, which holds the master lease on the building, will not renew Mitchell Brothers’ 15-year lease when it runs out in 1990.

Senior Vice President Arnold Childhouse said United Artists simply doesn’t “enter into those kinds of leases today . . . . I would have something to say about who would get that lease and it will not be Mitchell Brothers.”

The brothers themselves, Jim and Artie, had mixed feelings about the end of their tenure in Santa Ana. There are no specific plans to find a new place to screen X-rated movies and they may decide that it’s simply not profitable anymore.

Artie Mitchell noted that home videos have cut sharply into adult theater attendance and that the chain’s cost of defending their Santa Ana operation has been prohibitive. The firm is branching out into general audience movie production, as well as home videos and even commercial fishing, he said.

Mayor Dan Young said he was “absolutely delighted” to hear about Childhouse’s announcement. He added that the city has plans for redevelopment in the area and a consultant to handle that effort is to be hired within a month.