Judge to Rule Next Month on Theaters : Courts: Construction of the 12-screen complex has been delayed for almost two years. The judge has set Oct. 18 for a decision on the matter.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge next month could clear the way for construction of a 12-screen movie complex that has been delayed for nearly two years by litigation and controversy.

Or Judge William Huss could order the city to reconsider the project, possibly delaying it until next April’s municipal election, when a measure designed to kill the development will be on the ballot.

Huss told attorneys for the city, Edwards Theatres Circuit Inc. and project opponent Bob Mastro last week that he intends to rule on the case Oct. 18.

Mastro, who owns a pharmacy across from the theater site on Foothill Boulevard, is seeking a court order to compel the city to halt the project until further studies are made of the traffic impact on the boulevard.

Attorney John B. Murdock, representing Mastro, asked Huss last week to hear testimony from an independent traffic engineer who would explain how the city has failed to perform an adequate traffic analysis. He said the city never evaluated the cumulative traffic impacts of all the proposed developments along Foothill Boulevard and failed to examine the effect on several intersections.

The city’s attorney, C. Edward Dilkes, said the city’s own traffic experts could testify that the studies addressed all the relevant issues. But to hear such testimony, he said, the court would be inviting “a battle of the experts” that would settle nothing.

The issue before the court, Dilkes said, is not whether one approach to traffic analysis is better than another, but only whether the city had enough evidence to support its decision to approve the project and its environmental impact report. And clearly, he said, the city did.

Huss refused to hear testimony directly from Mastro’s traffic expert, R. Henry Mohle of La Habra, but he instructed the attorneys to take Mohle’s deposition and submit it. The judge said he will read the deposition and legal briefs to determine whether the City Council had sufficient evidence upon which to make its decisions.

Lawrence H. Davidson, lawyer for Newport Beach-based Edwards, asked the court to resolve the matter in the next 30 days because the project has been stalled for so long.

Outside court, Davidson said James Edwards Sr., who heads the theater chain, still plans to build the proposed theater-restaurant complex, but “his patience is wearing very thin.”

Davidson said he thinks Mastro is fighting the project for his own business interests. He said that Mastro, who is planning to build a new, larger pharmacy, may be concerned about competition since his drugstore sells snacks and so would the theater snack bar and restaurants.

Mastro said his only business concern is that theatergoers will fill up his parking lot and make traffic unbearable on Foothill.

He said he is not worried about competition. “I don’t make my living selling candy bars,” Mastro said.

The theaters and two restaurants would be built on 10 acres of a 17-acre lot at Foothill Boulevard and B Street.

The City Council approved the project in 1989, but Mastro blocked construction by obtaining a court order requiring further environmental studies. The city ordered a new environmental impact report and the council approved the project for the second time in February.

Again, Mastro went to court, charging that the environmental studies were flawed.

In addition to fighting the project in court, Mastro has helped qualify an initiative measure for the April municipal election ballot.

The measure would prohibit construction of a theater complex with more than 1,000 seats. The Edwards proposal calls for 3,000 seats.