Owner of Club Featuring Nude Dancers Charged

The owner of a Harbor Gateway business that features nude dancers has become the first person charged under a Los Angeles city ordinance prohibiting sexually oriented businesses near residential neighborhoods.

Francis E. Brown, owner of the Shanghai Lady on Western Avenue just east of Torrance, faces up to six months in County Jail and a $1,000 fine if he is convicted of the single misdemeanor charge filed Wednesday.

City Atty. James K. Hahn said he expects that many more owners of adult business will be charged as Los Angeles begins enforcing the 1986 law, which prohibits massage parlors, adult bookstores, sexually oriented movie theaters and other adult-entertainment businesses within 500 feet of homes.

Hahn said the businesses “have had more than enough time to either change their operations or move.”

Notices Served

The city Department of Building and Safety began serving notices for non-compliance when the law’s two-year grace period ended in March. The Shanghai Lady was ordered to close by April 15 but remains open.

Hahn said the Shanghai Lady was the first case prepared by his office but said the owners of 52 other businesses could face criminal charges if they do not close or file for extensions.

Most of the 26 other sex-related businesses affected by the law have already filed for extensions and will probably receive them, said Jim Carney, head of commercial inspections for the Department of Building and Safety. The ordinance permits businesses to stay open until March, 1991, if they can prove they have a binding lease, need more time to recoup property investments or cannot find comparable locations in non-residential areas.

Brown’s lawyer, Stephen Jamieson, said his client should not have been charged because he is likely to close the business by June 1.

“I don’t think it will be the best test case of the constitutionality of the ordinance,” Jamieson said, “simply because . . . the business will no longer be operating.”

Brown, who lives in Westchester, will be arraigned June 30.

The Shanghai Lady has been in business for six years, featuring nude dancers on a single stage. Neighbors who have fought the club since it opened said they are ecstatic that it may close.

“I think dancing in the streets is appropriate, but with our clothes on, amen!” said Lin Anderson, chairwoman of a neighborhood group called Citizens Against Smutty Environments.

Anderson, who lives a half-block from the Shanghai Lady, said she remains somewhat skeptical because closure has seemed imminent before.

She organized pickets in front of the club for six months after it opened and led a protest at the office of Arthur Berke, the Torrance dentist--now retired--who is the Shanghai Lady’s landlord.

Shanghai Lady dancers responded gamely with their own line of scantily clad pickets.

In 1983, the club appeared doomed when officials from the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control revoked its liquor license for showcasing nude dancing. (State law permits topless, but not nude, dancing in places that sell alcohol.) But the Shanghai Lady remained in business, charging $5 for nighttime admission and $3.50 for soft drinks.

In 1986, vice officers from the Los Angeles Police Department said they were on the verge of closing the Shanghai Lady. They asked the Police Commission to revoke its entertainment permit, charging that liquor was being sold without a license and that dancers performed lewd acts on stage. But the Police Commission refused to revoke the permit after a hearing officer failed to rule in the case.

Berke began eviction proceedings against the Shanghai Lady in February. He said he never would have rented to Brown if he had known what would go on there.

“I have wanted them out of there for a long time,” Berke said.

The eviction has been tied up in court after Jamieson filed several motions.

Two other South Bay businesses--a Wilmington bathhouse and a Harbor City topless bar--have also been targeted by the ordinance.

Glen’s 1350 Club West, at 510 W. Anaheim St. in Wilmington, has been ordered to close, although lawyers for the city said they have been told that the bathhouse will apply for an extension.

The Front View Cabaret, 1612 W. Pacific Coast Highway, Harbor City, was also told it must close.

A public hearing will be held July 7 at San Pedro City Hall to determine whether the bar should be granted an extension.