Jonathan Club, L.A. Sue Each Other in Fight Over Bias Law

The exclusive Jonathan Club and the City of Los Angeles confronted each other with lawsuits Thursday, with the club suing to invalidate an anti-discrimination ordinance and the city suing to compel the club to let women members use its bar and grill.

City Atty. James Hahn filed his suit in Superior Court, and the Jonathan Club filed a suit in U.S. District Court challenging the constitutionality of the 1987 ordinance under which Hahn was proceeding.

John R. Shiner, counsel for the club, charged that in moving to integrate the men’s bar and grill the city has begun to interfere in the Jonathan Club’s internal affairs. He said even the club’s first half dozen women members, all admitted since last summer, prefer that such interference be avoided.

“This ordinance is being misused by the city to bully private organizations,” Shiner asserted.

“There are many other issues that are far more pressing than this,” said Charles R. Walter Jr., the club’s general manager. “Why should the city be spending taxpayer’s money on a frivolous lawsuit when it could be aiding the homeless or addressing the problem of the raw sewage that is polluting our ocean or our polluted air which far exceeds federal standards?”

Walter said Hahn and Controller Rick Tuttle, who strongly chastised the Jonathan Club on Thursday for continuing “to openly degrade women,” are engaged in political grandstanding with the aim of using the private club controversy as a steppingstone to higher office.

Hahn was out of town Thursday, but Deputy City Atty. Pamela A. Albers, who is handling the case, said she had tried to negotiate with Shiner over the issue of women’s access to club facilities before the city filed its suit.

Albers said a report in The Times on Thursday that the lawsuit also sought to force the club to open its library to women was in error. She said the city attorney’s office has accepted the assurances of Shiner that the library is already open to women.

“I made efforts to compromise,” Albers said. “I met with Shiner, and I continually stressed to him that the only thing required was that the men’s bar and grill be open to all members and guests.”

Shiner, however, said he had concluded that the city attorney’s office was trying to dictate internal club policy despite the fact that no member of the club, including any of its women members, had complained.

Albers responded later that she feels “the focus of the ordinance is narrow” and the city’s position has been reasonable.

“I’m not one to push hard,” she said. “We’re not telling the club it has to increase its (total) membership (to admit more women). . . . And we’re not saying it has to integrate its locker rooms.”

But, she added, “This ordinance is only 50% satisfied by the club’s admitting women and minorities. It is important that it end discriminatory rules as to the use of its facilities as well. Barring women from . . . the bar and grill detracts from the value of membership, and it may keep women from applying. Who wants to pay $10,000 to join a club and then not be able to use the restaurant?”

Albers said the city attorney contemplates filing similar suits against other private clubs. Another such suit against the Brentwood Country Club for barring women from a grill and its golf course during certain hours was settled recently with a compromise expanding women’s access.

As Albers and Shiner sparred with each other, Tuttle, one of the initiators of the ordinance authored last year by Councilwoman Joy Picus, called a news conference to blast the Jonathan Club.

‘Openly Degrade Women’

“It is absolutely outrageous that important business leaders and representatives of powerful corporations (who belong to the club) continue to openly degrade women,” Tuttle said. “A ‘No Women Allowed’ policy in the Jonathan Club dining room is no more tolerable than a policy of ‘No Jews Allowed’ or ‘No Blacks Allowed.’ It’s discrimination in its ugliest form.”

As the Jonathan Club battle unfolds, the nearby exclusive California Club, which has never had a full-fledged woman member in its 101-year-history, was reported this week to be on the verge of admitting the first two.

Sources within the club said that the names of two women are being posted to the membership in the January bills and that the club’s admissions committee is expected to take final action admitting them soon.