Judge Blocks Christmas Tree Lot at Pierce : Litigation: The court hearing had some holiday touches, but the ruling against farmer Joe Cicero presented him with hard economic reality.

Saying she regretted she had to play Scrooge, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge stepped into the San Fernando Valley Christmas tree war Monday, ordering farmer Joe Cicero not to sell Christmas trees on land he leases from Pierce College.

The decision followed a courtroom clash with distinctive holiday touches, such as discussions of sleigh rides, reindeer and the telltale signs of an illicit Christmas tree lot--the construction of tinsel-wrapped arches, candy-striped poles, and green and white flags.

Yet there was a harsh economic reality in the ruling by Judge Dzintra A. Janavs, granting the Los Angeles Community College District a temporary restraining order against Cicero. He’s stuck with 8,000 Christmas trees--at a cost of an estimated $120,000--and nowhere to sell them.

“This will be just devastating and catastrophic to my client,” said Harold Kippen, who represents the farmer, whose family has plowed Valley fields since 1947.

The victor was Miller & Sons, one of the largest Christmas tree vendors in California. The company has 40 lots, including one across the street from Cicero’s, which is on the campus in Woodland Hills.

As owner Stu Miller and his lawyer tell it, the skirmish between the two men is a simple case of free enterprise--too free. Cicero pays the college district about $15,000 to lease 25 acres of farmland at Pierce College, but was charged nothing extra last year to add Christmas trees to his usual produce stand sales of fruits, vegetables and Halloween pumpkins.

“They’re getting something for nothing,” said attorney Michael B. Scott, who represents Miller. “My client is not out just to put Cicero out of business. . . . All he wants is the right to bid on the property.”

Miller, who estimated his annual statewide sales at 400,000 trees--85,000 in the Valley alone--said Cicero had caused him to lose at least 3,200 sales in December, 1989. Despite assurances from the college that no trees would be sold this year, he said his employees noticed tinseled arches and candy-striped poles going up at Cicero’s stand in mid-November.

Miller, who sold trees at the college in 1986 in cooperation with the Associated Students Organization, said he has inquired annually since then about the possibility of selling there again. Letters from college officials filed with the court show that they repeatedly responded that they would not allow tree sales on the property.

“We’re not the big-guy bully,” Miller said. “Joe Cicero’s doing no more than stealing our business.”

But Kippen said it is just that: a case of the Goliaths--Miller and the college district--trying to squash a Yuletide David.

Kippen conceded that Christmas trees were not in the five-year lease that Cicero signed with the district in 1986; in fact, the lease only calls for the sale of products grown on the land. But he said that since then, verbal agreements were made between his client and college officials to allow sales of other items, including pumpkins and trees.

“Look at all the kiddies who are going to be without their sleigh rides,” Kippen said, referring to the rides Cicero offered on his lot last year.

The Miller lots sometimes feature live reindeer.

Last December, Cicero, with the college’s support, succeeded in defeating an identical request by Miller for a temporary restraining order. But in the months that followed, the college switched sides, joining Miller. A series of telephone calls and letters to Cicero followed, banning 1990 sales on college property.

James Lynch, assistant general counsel for the college district, said the change of mind was largely the result of a lawsuit by Miller against the district. That suit, filed concurrently with the action taken against Cicero in late 1989, alleged that the district fostered unfair competition by failing to allow others to bid on the right to sell trees from the campus location, in violation of state laws covering profit-making activities on public land.

“We have an obligation as a public agency to do what we feel is right with the taxpayers’ money,” Lynch said. “It does us no good financially to continue fighting this lawsuit, which could be very lengthy.”

Lynch said that a year ago, the district sided with Cicero because the then-new Pierce College president, Dan Means, had inadvertently granted him permission to sell trees.

Under a settlement agreement with Miller signed earlier this year, the college agreed that no more trees would be sold on the land until Cicero’s lease expires in December, 1991. That agreement comes before a judge for ratification Dec. 6.

In her ruling Monday, Janavs rejected Miller’s contentions of unfair competition: “What’s unfair about someone selling Christmas trees competing with someone else?” she asked. But she agreed with the college district’s assertion that Cicero’s lease did not include Christmas tree sales.

“I am bothered by the fact that Cicero seems to be quite deliberately trying to go outside the bounds of that agreement,” Janavs said.

Kippen said he would discuss with Cicero the possibility of appealing.