Club Will Conduct New Poll on Women

Against the expressed wishes of Mayor Tom Bradley, the board of directors of the exclusive California Club has announced what amounts to a second poll of the membership on the issue of admitting women as members.

At the same time, while acceding to the demands of a dissident faction for the new “advisory poll,” the nine-member board issued a strongly worded written statement saying the time has come for the downtown club to “respond to its responsibilities in our society” and live up to a commitment to admit women.

Six former club presidents this week have also circulated a letter of their own urging rejection of the new effort to stop the club from admitting women.

The actual question to which the club’s 1,275 regular members and 300 non-resident members are being asked to respond, on secret ballot by March 15, is whether a new house rule should be adopted that would ban all use of the club by the members for business purposes, receipt of business reimbursements for club expenses and taking tax deductions on such expenses.

According to both sides, adoption of such a rule would mean the club would ignore the Los Angeles ordinance banning membership discrimination at most of the city’s large private clubs and, most pointedly, continue to keep women out.

The ordinance cites the business nature of the clubs as authority for municipal regulation of their membership policies.

As the group of 66 dissidents put it in a Feb. 23 letter to the rest of the members, “The purpose of the proposed house rule is to effect the removal of the club from the coverage of the Los Angeles anti-club (non-discrimination) ordinance.”

The California Club has never had a woman member in its 101-year-history and until last June, had a specific clause in its bylaws barring them.

After the city enacted its non-discrimination ordinance, the club membership voted 1,045 to 81 last June to revoke the clause. Since then, two women have been approved for membership and put on the club’s waiting list, pending vacancies in the limited regular membership. Meanwhile, the club also admitted the first black member in its history.

The dissidents, however, have insisted in several letters to the members that the question for the vote was framed in a misleading way and that there ought to be a new vote.

Bradley, upon first learning the club might take a second vote, wrote club President Lawrence P. Day on Feb. 2, telling him that “groups cannot be permitted to vote on whether to comply with a city law.”

Even more important than that, he added, another vote on equal treatment for women at such a well-known club would send the outside world “exactly the wrong message about Los Angeles and about the opportunities that are available in this city.”

Informed this week that the new poll will be taken, Bradley reiterated that he feels “attempts to circumvent the city’s anti-discrimination law are highly inappropriate and reflect poorly on the club’s members.”

However, the mayor added that he is “pleased” that the board of directors is opposing the move.

“They have taken (this position) belatedly, but they have taken it,” he said.

In an interview Thursday, President Day said he had written Bradley on Feb. 18 telling him, “The officers and the board of directors have no intention of reversing the commitment to consider proposals of women for membership in the California Club.”

Day said the club’s leadership is in accord with the mayor on most points in the matter, and he noted that he had ended his letter by assuring Bradley that his “interest and concern for the future of Los Angeles” was “shared by the members of the California Club.”

But in a letter to the members enclosed with the poll materials, the dissidents, headed by former club President John M. Robinson, contend that:

“Recent admonitions and warnings from the City Hall directed at the club . . . point to the place where in the future, the policies of the club will ultimately be determined, if it remains subject to the (anti-discrimination) ordinance. That place is the Civic Center, not 538 S. Flower St. (the club’s own address).

“Is this what you want?” the dissidents asked. “Your vote will decide who in the future controls the club’s policies and what will be the club’s eventual fate. . . . This poll will decide whether the club is to be preserved in a semblance of its traditional form or is eventually to become a modified place of public accommodation.”

In their letter enclosed with the same materials, however, the nine club directors warned members that adoption of the rule and rejection of the ordinance and women could lead the club into a morass of litigation and might engender even more municipal restrictions.

“If the proposed house rule were adopted, the subsequent continuous and widespread media attention would result in an adverse perception of the club and its members by the general public,” the directors said.

“The leadership of the Los Angeles community, including elected officeholders, would regard the club as acting evasively and inconsistently with the intent of the club’s own by-laws change. . . .

“Litigation challenging the proposed house rule would be expensive, intrusive for both the club and its members, and would probably result in widespread subpoenas of personal and business records of members and their employers,” they added.

Toward the close of their letter, the directors declared:

“The issues leading to this poll are evidence that the club lives in a changing society. The California Club is an important part of that society, and your board believes that the worthwhile values of the club can be preserved within club policies which do not base membership decisions on factors such as religion, race, or gender.”