4 Adult Businesses Request Permits to Stay in Operation

Owners of four San Fernando Valley adult-entertainment businesses requested city permits Monday to stay open for up to three years under an extension provision of a Los Angeles ordinance that bans such shops from residential neighborhoods.

Associate Zoning Administrator Jack C. Sedwick said he probably will grant extensions to Little Joe’s II in Reseda and the Compound in North Hollywood. He said he needed to study further the extension requests from Venus Faire and Jasons II Adult Books in North Hollywood. His said his final decisions will be issued in two weeks.

Last month, the city began enforcing a 1986 ordinance that prohibits sexually oriented businesses, such as adult bookstores and video arcades, from operating within 500 feet of homes. The ordinance affects about 90 businesses citywide.

But businesses with long-term leases or large investments in their sites were permitted to apply for extensions of up to three years. About 30 business have applied citywide.

In public hearings Monday, attorney David M. Brown presented documents that he said demonstrated that the owners of the businesses had signed long-term leases. Six people protested the continued operation of Little Joe’s II on Reseda Boulevard.

Sedwick explained that the ordinance says exemptions are to be granted if owners can prove that they signed long-term leases before May 6, 1986.