It Was a Colossal Pain in the Year for Some Unfortunate Folks

While others were saying goodby to 1987 Thursday, some people around the San Fernando Valley were probably saying good riddance.

Take James Moore of Studio City. He was the plaintiff in a sex discrimination lawsuit filed in February by lawyer Gloria Allred against the Women Only spa. In March, Moore withdrew, saying he was disgusted by the conduct of lawyers on both sides and had decided that he did not want to intrude on women members of the club. An irritated Allred suggested that Moore was a wimp.

Two Los Angeles City Council members were irritated by thieves. Joel Wachs interrupted a burglary at his Studio City residence in March when he returned home to find trash bags full of his belongings on his front lawn. Joy Picus was shopping at Topanga Plaza in Canoga Park in December when thieves stole her city-owned car. It was recovered later, minus Picus’ briefcases and car phone.

Amy Cumberworth, a $3.75-an-hour sales clerk from Canoga Park, seemed a little irritated after she and two friends returned $1,500 in receipts they found in June outside a Reseda restaurant. They were offered a free meal as a reward. “Next time, I’d probably keep $50,” Cumberworth said.

People living around tiny Whiteman Air Park in Pacoima were not amused when they learned last January that the pilot of a DC-9 jetliner came within a few hundred feet of landing on Whiteman’s short runway when he mistook it for Burbank Airport.

And comedian Bob Hope was unamused in October when he volunteered to perform free at a Burbank fund-raiser. Only about 1,500 people attended the city-sponsored show, prompting City Councilwoman Mary Lou Howard to comment that, “obviously, Bob Hope is not the draw he once was.” Responded Hope’s publicist: “Mr. Hope was not pleased” either at Howard’s assessment or the size of the crowd. Howard later apologized.

In Agoura Hills, officials were unable to persuade Los Angeles County to authorize a tiny “sphere of influence” for the city at the edge of the existing city boundaries. So instead, in February, the City Council asked the Paris-based International Astronomical Union to name a small Martian crater 48.7 million miles away after Agoura.

In Canoga Park, teacher Marjorie Eisenberg was reprimanded in September after she showed the horror film “Nightmare on Elm Street” to second-graders at Hamlin Street Elementary School while she moved boxes of materials to a new classroom. Some parents complained that the film caused real nightmares for their children.

An article about a “homosexual dream sequence” turned into a nightmare of sorts for college editor Richard Hawkins, who was in charge of a literary magazine at California Institute for the Arts in Valencia. Two private graphics shops objected to explicit language in the story and refused to print the September issue of Walt--named after school founder Walt Disney.

Sylmar resident Wendy Glover was chased out of her home in May when 2,000 birds flew down her chimney and took over her house. Los Angeles animal control officers eventually removed the black-and-gray swifts one by one. “They were just caked on the walls. It was terrible,” Glover reported from her bird house.

Sheep Killed

of stray dogs chased a flock of sheep in the hills above Chatsworth in February. About 200 of the animals followed one another over a cliff and plunged to their deaths.

A dog-sized horse named Ragtime chased Thousand Oaks city officials ragged all year. The city filed a criminal action against resident Patty Fairchild after she refused to move her 27-inch-high miniature horse from her house. Officials claimed Fairchild was setting a precedent that would allow other farm animals to move into the neighborhood.

In the hills of Topanga Canyon, developer Steve Carlson, 34, offered an explanation as he waited in August to bail his father out of jail after Arnold Carlson, 62, was arrested on suspicion of illegally bulldozing an Indian burial site. “It’s an engine burial ground, not Indian. We call it the Pontiac engine grounds. We’ve pulled out valve stems, air filters, piston heads,” the younger Carlson said.

And, in the hills of Castaic, homeowners in the Stonegate housing tract took time out from watching the Lakers beat the Celtics 141-122 on a big-screen TV in the tract’s recreation room to beat back a ban on basketball in Tony Burke’s driveway. The residents voted by a 4-to-1 margin to drop a restriction on driveway basketball hoops and let Burke keep his basket above the garage door.