X Marks the Spot Where Values Split : Some say adult video rentals at a Hermosa Beach store are anti-family, devil’s work. Others cite constitutional guarantees of free expression. Outside groups have joined the battle a local church began. It all may end up in court.

A clash of values has disrupted Hermosa Beach’s gentle melding of youthful life styles and traditional families, sharply dividing residents over the rental of X-rated adult movies by a downtown video store.

The issue has been cast in emotional terms at the last two City Council meetings.

Opponents of the adult video rentals portray their efforts as a crusade against pornography. Hermosa Beach resident Tom Allen warned council members that they could “choose whether you are pro-family” or “cater to a different interest,” which he likened to the “devil crawling out from the sewer.”

Defenders of the video rentals cite constitutional guarantees of free speech. Resident Mark Hoffman told council members: “It is really not your job to reinterpret that Constitution or to act as a censor for this community.”

The campaign against Hermosa Video has its roots in a local church, the Hope Chapel, whose members were urged last fall to become more active in political issues close to home.

City officials say the fusion of religion and politics at the local level is something they have not seen here before.

City Councilwoman June Williams, a church member, took up the issue, and conservative organizations from across the state and Arizona joined the adult-video battle in Hermosa Beach.

Louis P. Sheldon, Sacramento lobbyist for the Traditional Values Coalition, was the speaker who urged Hope Chapel members to get involved with “what we call Christian civility--civic involvement.”

“Pornography is progressive and it is addictive,” Sheldon said in an interview Thursday. “It is destructive of family values. . . . We must take a stand.”

But Scott Gallagher, owner of Hermosa Video, defends his right to rent and sell the adult videos, which make up about 85 of the 1,000 tapes available at his store.

The 24-year-old Gallagher said nearly all video stores in Southern California rent adult tapes because customers want them.

“They are popular enough that in order for us to be a successful video store, we should be able to carry them,” he said. “Legally, the city has no grounds for preventing us from having adult movies.”

Gallagher describes the tapes as adult entertainment.

Councilwoman Williams takes a decidedly different view.

“What we are talking about here is definitely pornography,” Williams said. “There is no question about it.”

Williams said her goal is to keep more adult video stores out of downtown Hermosa Beach and its neighborhood shopping areas. If such stores must go somewhere in the city, they should be restricted to the main commercial strip along Pacific Coast Highway, she said.

“The bar situation in our downtown area is bad enough without adding to the atmosphere with pornography,” she said.

‘It Only Downgrades’

“It’s sleazy. It does nothing to upgrade an area. It only downgrades,” Williams added. “The one video store is not my concern. The proliferation in that zone is my concern.”

Williams and other members of the City Council have asked city planners to study the possibility of outlawing all video stores in the city’s C-1 and C-2 commercial zones, which include Hermosa Avenue but not Pacific Coast Highway. That would effectively confine all video stores to the commercial strip along the highway, which already has two chain stores that stock X-rated videos and an adult bookstore.

The council unanimously requested the study after City Atty. James P. Lough warned that it would be unconstitutional for the city to regulate the type of movies for sale or rent in a video store. The only exception would be a store whose predominant trade is in adult material, he said.

Based on that advice, a divided City Council voted 3 to 2 last week to approve a conditional use permit for the Hermosa Video store.

The permit imposes a number of restrictions on the store. No more than 20% of its tapes can be adult videos, no window signs can advertise their availability and no X- or R-rated film can be shown on the store’s television monitor.

Accepts Restrictions

Gallagher, who also owns a larger video store in Manhattan Beach, accepts those restrictions and pointedly notes that he has always kept the adult videos in a separate area, out of the view of most customers.

He objects to the campaign against his business, saying the opposition is simply exploiting a controversial issue. “I don’t care to be compared to a pornography shop,” Gallagher said. “People are not coming in here in raincoats. Respectable members of the Hermosa Beach community come in here to rent adult movies.”

More than 200 customers signed petitions in support of Gallagher’s business, saying the store’s method of handling adult videos is neither offensive nor distasteful.

“Personally, I think that an adult should be able to rent and watch an adult movie in the privacy of his or her own home,” Gallagher said.

He said not only men but also couples and single women rent adult movies.

The sharp divisions in the community over the question were evident at a public hearing last week.

Resident Hoffman told the council that Hermosa Beach already has other video stores that rent adult videos, “and to my knowledge there has not been a great public outcry to remove them. I don’t think there has been a problem so far.”

Councilwoman Williams then accused Hoffman of being “in favor of pornography.”

He replied: “Each individual has the right to rent or purchase any type of entertainment that (he or she) would like.”

Opponents produced petitions objecting to the sale or rental of adult videos on Hermosa Avenue.

“This is hard-core pornography,” said David Fordyce, a Culver City resident. “We’re not talking about a little nudity. We are talking about serious sexual activity being portrayed in blatant detail.”

The Center for Decency Through Law Inc. of Phoenix, Ariz., and the Rutherford Institute, a Santa Ana-based conservative legal defense fund, urged council members to restrict video stores that rent adult videos.

Williams said Hermosa Beach “might end up with a test case” if an outside organization files suit to force the city to restrict adult videos.