Battle Worthy of the Silver Screen : Growth: A pharmacist has almost single-handedly kept a theater complex out of La Verne. He sees himself fighting City Hall. City Hall sees him thwarting progress.

If Bob Mastro had to imagine his recent activities depicted on the silver screen, he might envision something along the lines of “Mr. Mastro Goes to La Verne,” in which a 47-year-old small-town druggist takes on entrenched politicians, conniving bureaucrats and big business.

If city officials were making the movie, however, they’d be likelier to cast Mastro as the town crank and call it “The Man Who Stopped Progress.”

In either case, the picture couldn’t play in La Verne.

The city doesn’t have a movie house, in large part because Mastro has kept Edwards Theatres Circuit Inc. from building a 12-screen complex across the street from his pharmacy on Foothill Boulevard by filing lawsuits and backing initiative campaigns.

City Manager Martin R. Lomeli said Mastro has single-handedly stymied a project that is vital to the city’s economic growth. He warned that Mastro’s actions may well kill it through delay.

“Our concern is that we may lose this project not because of the court action or the initiative but because this developer, who builds the best movie complexes in Southern California, has been unduly delayed,” Lomeli said. “I’m afraid that at some point in time, he’s going to get sick of this whole thing.”

Lomeli said Edwards has spent $300,000 on legal fees, environmental studies and other work trying to overcome the hurdles put up by Mastro.

Lomeli said Mastro is “a stubborn man. I’ve sat down with him a number of times and given him all the facts on this project relative to traffic and all the other issues he’s raised. And he shakes his head and acts like he agrees, but he doesn’t. He’s just adamant. He’s emotionally drawn into this project. . . . I really don’t know what his motivation is.”

Mastro said his reasons for fighting the cinema complex are simple. “I look out my window and picture what it’s going to be like,” he said. He envisions a massive building, loiterers and traffic jams.

“Foothill Boulevard can’t handle the traffic it has now,” he said. “I often look out there and see a four-lane parking lot.”

Mastro said he isn’t against movie theaters, just against a project of this size, 12 screens and nearly 3,000 seats in a large building adorned with a decorative tower five stories high. Besides the theater building, there would be two restaurants on the site.

Mastro has not only suggested a smaller theater and more restaurants but has also hired an architect to draw up a plan for the site showing how it could accommodate a theater with 1,000 seats and 57,000 square feet of restaurants and retail shops.

The trouble with Mastro’s plan, Lomeli said, is that it is economically infeasible. Theater owners will only build large, multiscreen complexes these days, he said, and restaurateurs won’t build on the site either, unless there are theaters to draw crowds.

Besides, he said, the proposed Edwards Cinema Plaza is not unusually large. The Montclair Plaza Cinema and the Edwards Foothill 10 in Azusa have 3,000 seats or more.

James Edwards Sr., founder of the theater chain, bought 17 acres on Foothill Boulevard at B Street in the 1950s with the idea of building a home there on a citrus ranch. Those plans were never carried out, but Edwards held on to the property.

At the city’s urging five years ago, Edwards began developing plans for a theater complex on the front two-thirds of the site.

After the City Council approved the project, Mastro filed a lawsuit that delayed construction by obtaining a court order requiring additional environmental studies. Although Mastro won the suit and $28,000 from the city and theater chain to pay his expenses, it was a hollow victory. New environmental work was done at a cost to Edwards of $80,000, but the findings did not change the project.

So Mastro hired a traffic consultant to review the project, and has filed another suit in Los Angeles Superior Court contending that the city’s traffic studies were inadequate.

Meanwhile an initiative, backed by Mastro’s Small Town Preservation Committee, has qualified for the April, 1992, city election ballot. Mastro is vague about the number of residents on his committee, but pointed out that more than 2,000 qualified signatures were gathered to qualify the measure for the ballot. It would limit theaters to 1,000 seats.

Fearing that Edwards might start construction before the 1992 election, Mastro and other theater opponents have started another initiative campaign to force an earlier election. Petitioners need 2,404 signatures, 15% of the registered voters in the city of 30,897 residents. Officials at Edwards Theatres Circuit Inc. headquarters in Newport Beach could not be reached to comment on their plans.

Mastro pushes the fight against the theater project at his pharmacy. He keeps his customers informed about the battle with printed updates, and he has posted on his wall for public view memos culled from city files during his first lawsuit.

The memos, written by the staff of the architectural firm hired to design the theater, suggest that city staff members were coaching the theater development team on how to avoid public controversy over the project. Lomeli said the author of the memos went too far in trying to create the impression that the project’s prognosis was rosy but said there was nothing improper about the bureaucrats’ relationship with the theater team.

Barbara Kastner, who has formed a citizens committee to support the theater project, said Mastro has lost customers because of his efforts. She said she quit taking her prescriptions there and knows of at least 40 other people who changed pharmacies to protest his activities.

She said she particularly resents his efforts because he lives in Claremont. If he lived in La Verne, she said, he would be more concerned about the revenue and expense he has cost the city. “He doesn’t care because he doesn’t live here,” she said.

Kastner said Mastro has an unreasonable fear that theaters will bring undesirable people to La Verne. She said Mastro has told her he doesn’t want “those people coming up from Pomona.”

Mastro said his concern is with the crowds the theaters will draw and not with any particular community. “Pomona happens to be our biggest neighbor,” he said, “but we’re not singling out any particular town.” He said theater supporters always “try to get us to say something inflammatory.”

Mastro said his stand on the theater project has gained him some customers and driven others away. But, he said, “I’m far busier than I ever was and I’m growing faster than ever.”

As a La Verne property owner, businessman and taxpayer, Mastro said he has every right to fight the theater proposal even if he lives elsewhere.

Kastner said Mastro’s opposition is thwarting the desire of many residents for a local theater where they can take their children and not have to drive to Azusa, Glendora or Montclair. She said Mastro is “obsessed. It’s a very sad thing.”

But Dave Sardeson, who built an unsuccessful campaign for mayor last year on allegations that the city mishandled the theater project, said he admires Mastro’s willingness to buck City Hall. “You’ve got to give him a lot of credit for his stick-to-itiveness,” Sardeson said.