Rock and a Hard Place : Communities, Clubs Square Off Over Noise, Rowdiness

The way Scott Hunt sees it, his Long Beach neighborhood isn’t big enough for both his condominium and Fender’s International Grand Ballroom, a music club that showcases punk and thrash-metal bands on weekends. And Hunt has no plans to move.

“I have a fundamental right to peace and quiet in my home,” he said, sounding like a gunfighter as he prepared for the showdown coming June 20 when the Long Beach City Council holds a hearing to determine whether to revoke the operating licenses held by club owner John Fender.

“Fender has a right to run a business,” said Hunt, a 28-year-old accountant. “But when he interferes with my rights, he has to change. When he violates that, he can be shut down, and that’s what we’re going after.”

One recent show at Fender’s by the band Cro-Mags attracted a group of white-supremacist skinheads (though the band disavows any connection) and a concurrent anti-skinhead protest. And last year a skirmish between rock fans and the Long Beach police occured when a concert in a small side room off the main ballroom was closed for being overcrowded.

But while Hunt’s concerned about those kind of troubles, what has him in his fighting mood is more the ongoing problems with parking, loitering and trash he says comes from the rock shows.

But Fender, too, is ready for a fight. Heading to the hearing with “four of the best attorneys in town,” the real estate developer and club owner is intent on showing that he has been singled out as the target of a crusade to achieve the impossible.

“I think what they want is nothing going on in this neighborhood,” he said. “No traffic whatsoever.”

If that happens, it will be the latest of several recent moves against rock venues in the Southland, making some promoters wonder whether rock is an endangered species here:

*Last month Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation in effect halted rock shows at the 1,200-seat John Anson Ford Theatre in Hollywood by terminating a contract with H and D Entertainment, which had been sponsoring concerts at the Ford for more than a year. Among the problems cited by county officials: sound from a Ramones concert last summer disturbed patrons of the nearby Hollywood Bowl, causing the Bowl to pay more than $16,000 in ticket refunds.

John Webber, who oversees the theater for the Department of Parks and Recreation, said that the Ford will be used in coming weeks for such events as a Korean music festival and a Shakespeare play, but “no hard rock.”

*A permit-parking only regulation was recently instituted by the City of West Hollywood for residential streets near The Whisky, the Roxy and Gazzari’s rock clubs, all within a three-block stretch on the Sunset Strip. The intent, according to West Hollywood Councilman John Heilman: keep rock fans out of residents’ yards.

* In November, the Country Club in Reseda was barred from serving liquor when the Los Angeles City Council denied a renewal of the club’s dance permit after 11 years of mounting complaints from neighbors about everything from noise and vandalism to sex acts on their lawns.

* Laguna Beach’s Club Postnuclear is barely surviving after a request for a permit to sell beer was denied four months ago due largely to fears from nearby residents that beer would attract a rowdy element. That underscored the pattern in Orange County of rock clubs being closed or restricted due to friction with neighbors, including the 1986 closings of Safari Sam’s in Huntington Beach and Radio City in Anaheim. On a bigger scale, five years’ worth of complaints about noise disturbing neighbors of the outdoor Pacific Amphitheatre led a judge to order monitoring of sound levels this season in order to determine if restrictions should be imposed.

In past years, similar closings or restrictions of rock bookings have occured with venues ranging from the now-defunct Starwood club in Hollywood to the Rose Bowl in a wealthy Pasadena neighborhood.

One of the concert promoters most affected by these actions is Goldenvoice Productions, an Orange County-based firm that has used the Country Club, Fender’s, the Roxy, the Whisky and worked with H and D putting on shows at the John Anson Ford.

“I’m constantly having to look for new venues to put these shows on,” said Goldenvoice head Gary Tovar. “We’re always on the move. We’re still plugging away, but it’s getting harder to find places to play. I’m getting tired of this. “

Concurred Fender: “We’re looking for a facility that would be accepted in the community, but we’ve yet to find one. I don’t know what’s going to happen when there aren’t any places for the bands to play.”

Scott Hurowitz, the Country Club’s general manager, sees the same consequences looming. Though the Country Club has survived, slowly convincing bands and promoters that liquor is not necessarily needed as an attraction to rock fans, Hurowitz said the club cannot make much money this way and doesn’t know how long it can last.

“What happens when we all close up?” he said. “Where are the bands going to develop? Where are people going to go on Saturday night? It’s a shame the city can’t mediate with these people.”

But Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joy Picus, whose Third District includes the Country Club and its neighbors, and Long Beach City Councilman Evan Anderson Braude insist that there has been plenty of mediation.

“The issue was the failure of the owners to adequately protect the neighbors from the customers,” she said, claiming that the club was given plenty of chances to address the problems. “I believe the (club and residents) could have coexisted in this case had the Country Club owners been willing to make the investment to be good neighbors. But they never made a real commitment to it.”

Said Braude: “Consistently Fender has told me that certain things would be done to minimize the anguish of the residents in the area--the constant loitering of patrons, the urinating, throwing of bottles and beer cans into the bushes, the annoying of passers-by.”

Both club operators deny their culpability, claiming that the complaints are inflated rantings from community cranks and blame much of the noise and vandalism on people not connected with the club and claiming that they maintain a security force more than adequate for policing the vicinity.

“We never felt we had a problem with the neighborhood, at least not for the two and a half years I’ve been here,” Hurowitz said.

But one nearby resident, who asked not to be named, said the disturbances never happened before the club opened 11 years ago.

Another neighbor said that a period late last year after the club’s license was not renewed and the activity dwindled to two or three nights a week was a welcomed respite. Informed that the club was booked for five nights a week through the summer, the neighbor said with a sigh, “You’ve just ruined my day.”

Similarly, Fender claims that Braude and Hunt, who lives in a condominium in the old Lafayette Hotel that also houses Fender’s Ballroom, as blaming him for problems that extend beyond his responsibilities.

“There’s a group of residents, one guy in particular (Hunt), and they’re determined to close every aspect of my business down,” Fender said. “But we’re in downtown Long Beach and have only one show a week, while the area’s got problems seven days a week.”

Braude and Hunt agree that not all the problems in the area can be attributed to the rock club. But they do point fingers at other Fender-owned operations in the area, including a bar and grill and several rental party rooms in the Lafayette as the source of other concerns.

Still, Braude sees only one solution: “Hopefully we’ll go forward to the day I can go to the residents and say, ‘You don’t have John Fender to kick around any more.’ ”