Owners Absent : Appeals Board Tells Studio City Sex Shop to Close

Studio City’s Le Sex Shoppe on Tuesday boycotted its own appeal of a Los Angeles ordinance that bans sexually oriented businesses near residential areas, and a city board ordered the shop closed.

Homeowners and business representatives traveled to a Board of Zoning Appeals hearing to complain that the Ventura Boulevard shop is a nuisance that should be shut down.

Zoning officers were at the City Hall meeting to explain that they believe the shop violates a city law that prohibits sexually oriented businesses within 500 feet of homes.

Le Sex Shoppe lawyers stayed in their Beverly Hills offices.

“We feel it was really useless to argue our case before them,” Robert Sarnow, an attorney for EWAP Inc., the owner of Le Sex Shoppe, said afterward. “It’s clear the city feels it’s required to interpret the ordinances in a single way.”

Unanimous Vote

Board members looked in vain Tuesday for someone to argue Le Sex Shoppe’s case before voting 5 to 0 to affirm an order that the shop be closed.

“Are we assured that the applicant received notice of this meeting?” asked panel member Ilene Olansky.

Planning staff members replied that bookstore lawyers were notified 36 days in advance. Associate zoning administrator William Lillenberg, who issued the shutdown order in May, said the hearing held in May had been postponed one month after the lawyers complained that they had not been notified in advance of a hearing scheduled for April.

Lillenberg had ordered the closure after deciding that two businesses--the bookstore and a movie arcade--were being operated at the same site. The law, which allows some sexually oriented businesses within 500 feet of homes to remain open until 1991, does not protect companies that operate more than one such business at the same address.

Operators of the Studio City shop argued that their arcade was exempt from the two-business rule because it was not sexually oriented, offering viewers non-sexual feature movies in addition to hard-core fare.

Lillenberg responded that it “doesn’t appear reasonable” to believe that patrons would watch a general interest movie in a coin-operated machine.

Le Sex Shoppe lawyers had appealed Lillenberg’s ruling to set the stage for Tuesday’s board hearing.

Studio City residents charged that the boycott was a ploy to keep the bookstore open as long as possible.

Polly Ward, president of the Studio City Residents Assn., suggested that Le Sex Shoppe is thumbing its nose at the city ordinance by demanding that it be given permission to stay open through March 6, 1991.

“The community has been patient, believing the law would solve the problem we’re living with,” Ward said.

Added Jodell Hayes, president of the Studio City Chamber of Commerce: “I expect they’ll say they never got a notice of this meeting and will try to stall their closure to 1991.”

But Sarnow said late Tuesday that Le Sex Shoppe is eager to further appeal the panel’s action to the City Council so that the legality of the ordinance can be challenged in court.

“The city law is unconstitutionally vague. We’ll immediately file a lawsuit after we go through the city’s administrative steps,” Sarnow said.

“Our Studio City location is very inoffensive--it doesn’t thrust its material on unwary customers. It has a very discreet front and is buffered from residential areas by other commercial businesses and the L.A. River.

“We’re looking forward to getting to court.”