Lawsuit Seeks to Force Adult Theater to Aid in Crackdown

The Los Angeles city attorney is seeking a court injunction to force a Canoga Park adult movie theater to continue cooperating with a police crackdown on lewd activity.

The target of the lawsuit filed by the city in Los Angeles Superior Court is the Pussycat Park Theatre at 21622 Sherman Way. Deputy City Atty. Marcia Gonzales-Kimbrough said police have made 96 arrests during the past two years for lewd conduct in the theater.

The theater is located across the street from Le Sex Shoppe, an adult bookstore that has spurred neighborhood complaints and is now operating under a similar court injunction declaring it a public nuisance. Deputy City Atty. Henry Burr said the bookstore is complying with the terms of that court order.

The company that now owns the theater, Starplex Inc., has also been cooperating with authorities, Gonzales-Kimbrough said, and has added security guards and increased lighting in the theater to discourage lewd activity. But the city attorney’s office went ahead with the suit to ensure that the cooperation will continue.

“The location had become such a nuisance under the previous ownership that we decided to file the lawsuit in order to ask for an injunction to regulate the continued operation of the theater,” City Atty. James K. Hahn said in a statement. “That will put teeth into the cleanup effort and make sure that it continues.”

An employee at Starplex said the company would not comment on the suit, which was filed under the California Red Light Abatement Act. That law allows cities or counties to ask a judge to declare a business known for lewdness, gambling or prostitution to be a public nuisance, Gonzales-Kimbrough said.

The city can then ask a judge to require the business to work with police to reduce crime at the site; if the business does not comply, municipal officials can have the enterprise shut down and order its assets sold to pay for a criminal prosecution, Gonzales-Kimbrough said.

“Regular criminal enforcement is not getting rid of the problem” at the Pussycat, Gonzales-Kimbrough said. “We are asking the judge to go above and beyond criminal enforcement.”