Supportive Women and, Uh. . . Alley Life on Council Agenda

Just before midnight, the battered Ford squeaked to a stop near Le Sex Shoppe. That’s French, Bunky; it means The Sex Shop. A scruffy man emerged from the car.

Halfway to the store on busy Sherman Way in Canoga Park the man paused and then returned, stuffing a coin into the parking meter.

He walked briskly into the emporium of unspeakable objects and 15 minutes later made his purchase.

The man bought Super Shirley.

Let’s tread lightly here. Super Shirley, all $49.95 of her, is an inflatable woman. Perhaps the man planned to use her as a passenger in his car, gaining unethical access to those freeway car-pool lanes.

Perhaps not.

One hint in the Perhaps Not category is that a line of big print across the package in which Super Shirley has lived most of her shelf life proclaims: Holds Up To 250 Pounds .

Which brings us back to the parking meter. What sort of a man, one might ask, could have sunk so far into the social abyss as to seek romantic solace from a pool raft in a negligee and still be concerned with a parking meter violation?

This is like spending a night intentionally running people down in your car and then rising early in the morning in a frantic effort to renew your dog’s license before it expires.

But such is the life that often slinks about Le Sex Shoppe, a Canoga Park adult bookstore, movie theater and warehouse of sexual weirdness that has drawn the ire of neighbors and Los Angeles Councilwoman Joy Picus.

They say strange and lewd things go on in the alley behind the store.

Oh, please!

Hard to imagine how an area that has Le Sex Shoppe on one side of the street and the hard-core Pussycat Theater across the street could have such problems.

Picus will have the Los Angeles City Council debating next week whether to close the alley behind the Shoppe, on the grounds that although Canoga Park may lack sparkling night life, the Boston Combat Zone is a poor role model for redevelopment. The debate should at least provide a change of pace for the council, a break from pondering the shortage of water and the surplus of uppity slow-growthers.

Picus has already failed in a bid to have the Shoppe declared a public nuisance. Well, one man’s nuisance is another’s refreshing frolic, but the Police Department says it arrests up to 21 people a month around the Pussycat and the Shoppe for things like lewd conduct and prostitution.

Now, why would that be?

Le Sex Shoppe advertises--in neon lights--25-cent movies. Certainly a bargain, especially when you remember that real theaters charged $7 to see “Ishtar” a few years ago.

And just feet away, the Pussycat trumpets a double-feature. The name of the first film will be printed in this newspaper the day George Bush and Sadam Hussein ride around together in Washington with a six-pack between them. The second adult film is called “Lusty Dusty,” obviously a tale of a housewife so preoccupied with sex that she has no time to vacuum.

Inside Le Sex Shoppe is an array of video tapes, magazines and adult playthings that would make a TV evangelist pretend to be mortified. In addition to the inflatable people (yes, there are inflatable men, too) there are giant . . . well . . . we can’t mention that.

But on the wall are rows and rows of . . . oops, can’t mention those, either. But you wouldn’t believe the aisle devoted entirely to . . . ah, never mind.

The videos are beyond belief, also. The vast majority of the titles fall well into that Can’t Say That Here category, but a few others are worth noting.

“Skin Games,” for example, is not a how-to taxidermy tape. Or “Sex Smorgasbord” (no doubt a Swedish film) or “First Time.”

(Yeah sure. Maybe that day ).

In the back of Le Sex Shoppe is a room of private booths showing those 25-cent movies. A steady parade of men visited the area on a recent night.

Sleazy? Oh, a little. Let’s just say the average guy would not feel very safe grabbing onto one of the booth’s doorknobs even if he was wearing an Operation Desert Storm gas suit, with the gloves and boots.

Outside, long past midnight, the action was heating up. A very hefty woman stood on the street corner wearing a heavy sweater--a large, heavy sweater--with very tight white pants and white boots.

She was very friendly. She waved at passing cars.

After about 20 minutes, two men approached on foot. An observer crept a bit closer to catch any meaningful dialogue. There was none.

One of the men asked boldly, “How much?”

And here, the woman of great size had been handed the perfect opportunity for humor. She could have split some sides with, “Oh, about 240 pounds.”

But she missed the chance.

Instead, she mentioned money.

Hey, if you want to laugh, go to Le Comedy Store. That’s French. It means The Comedy Store.