Fighting Crime in Torrance

Hypocrisy, your name is Torrance.

Whenever some “moral” group wants to run a blue-movie emporium, or some topless bar, or a porno bookstore out of town, the complaints usually start with the “high crime rate” around the “terrible” business.

Yet, according to your story on the crime rate around Del Amo Fashion Square (Times, Oct. 29), the mall accounts for some 20% of all crime in Torrance.

Instead of beefing up the police there, why not take a leaf out of the moralists’ book and put the mall out of business the same way the “moralists” would put an X-rated bookstore out of business?

The very next time I see or hear of some moralist group attempting to crack down on some topless bar or blue-movie palace, I hope that The Times, for one, will point out this hypocrisy to the moralist group.

LYBRAND P. SMITH

Torrance