ANAHEIM : Plans to Screen Acts at Theater Weighed

Celebrity Theatre executives are expected to meet with city leaders next week to work out details of a plan to screen future performances after a fight and shooting there last week.

A. Raymond Hamrick III, a Universal City attorney and spokesman for California Celebrity Theatre, said Thursday that theater officials will meet with City Council members and the police chief to discuss questions about security measures and how performers will be evaluated before they are booked for theater events.

Hamrick said no date had been set for the meeting, but Mayor Fred Hunter said he expected to discuss the screening proposal early next week.

That proposal, which would ban any acts that “bring a negative element into the community,” was delivered in a letter Wednesday to Hunter, after a 16-year-old was wounded in a shooting outside the theater.

The shooting and an unrelated fight inside the theater caused police to clear the downtown arena and cancel the performances of rappers Ice Cube and Too Short.

Hamrick declined to discuss current theater security measures, but he said changes could be made as a result of next week’s meeting.

No arrests have been made in the shooting of Willie Baker of Los Angeles. Baker, shot once in the stomach, was reported in good condition at Long Beach Memorial Hospital.