Queen Mary Finally Is Acting Like a Lady, Vice Authorities Say

The Queen Mary, the grande dame of Los Angeles female-impersonator nightclubs, which authorities charged had become a haven for transvestite prostitution, has cleaned up its act, according to the state Alcohol Beverage Control Commission and police.

As a result, the ABC has dropped its effort to temporarily suspend the Studio City club’s liquor license for running a disorderly club, Jim Smith, ABC district administrator for northwestern Los Angeles county, said this week.

Instead, Smith said, the ABC has agreed to a request by the Queen Mary’s owners that they pay a fine, expected to be $1,500, and be placed on probation for a year. The club’s license will be suspended for 15 days if it violates the probation.

Earlier, the ABC had recommended a 45-day license suspension. A suspension of 20 days would have been imposed immediately, and the other 25 days would have taken effect if the club violated a one-year probation. The matter was to be scheduled for a hearing shortly.

The ABC investigation, opened early this year, stemmed from 28 arrests for prostitution-related crimes inside the club and on adjoining streets and a nearby parking lot during the past three years, Smith said.

He said the Queen Mary has “taken steps to alleviate this problem of people loitering around the back and inside the premises soliciting prostitution,” adding that “it appears the licensee is making a good-faith effort.”

Los Angeles police, who reported in February that they had made 70 arrests in the previous year in or near the Queen Mary, agreed that the club has improved the situation by placing security guards inside and outside.

“The problem is still existent, but it is not in the magnitude it was,” said Police Lt. Steve Moede, who heads the North Hollywood vice squad. Only two arrests, one for soliciting prostitution and the other for lewd conduct, have been made in or near the club since June 1, Moede said.

Robert Juleff, the club’s owner, said, “We now patrol the whole block. . . . People are just discouraged from parking in our parking lot and hanging around.”

Juleff started the club with his mother, Mickie Lee, in 1964, as the city’s first nightspot featuring female impersonators. He said the club’s management is not involved with prostitution. Police and ABC officials said Juleff has cooperated with them.

Most of those arrested were male patrons dressed as women, authorities said, although at least one female impersonator featured in the club’s show was arrested.

Authorities reported no problems with the Ventura Boulevard club’s front room, the site of the show, which features lavish outfits, lip-synced musical numbers, impersonations of women singers and raunchy humor. “We are what we are, and what we are is an illusion,” the club’s theme song proclaims.

Rather, police said, solicitations occurred in the wood-paneled back room, known as the King’s Den, where heavily made-up transvestite performers and patrons and men in conventional attire mingled on a dance floor and at the bar. Police said prostitutes also worked a narrow alley behind the bar, waving at cars to solicit customers.