AIDS Benefit Thrift Store Has a Rocky, If Profitable, Year : Regulations: Employees say they were harassed by neighbors and city officials, who reply that the store opened without the necessary permits.

With high hopes and a sense of urgency, members of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation rented an empty retail space in Atwater Village last year and opened a thrift store called Out of the Closet to raise money for AIDS patients.

Their energy and sense of mission seemed to be reflected in the the shop’s lively sign, which depicted a parade of furniture, appliances, clothing, dishes and other used items joyfully marching out of a closet.

In its first year, Out of the Closet had its ups and downs, its most notable frustration being a long-drawn-out tangle with city officials that organizers attribute to one person’s spite.

Financially, the thrift store was a success, raising more than $100,000 for patients of the Chris Brownie Hospice in Elysian Park, said Michael Weinstein, the foundation’s president.

It also received so many donations of clothes and other goods that a second outlet was opened on La Brea Boulevard in Los Angeles last month, and foundation members hope to have a third site by the end of the year.

But the year was not without disappointments.

Plans for a clinic above the shop, which foundation members hoped would serve asymptomatic AIDS patients in Northeast Los Angeles, were shelved because of a shortfall in expected funding.

Store employees endured verbal attacks from some passers-by. And two weeks ago, climaxing a yearlong dispute with city officials, the store’s management was forced to take down the hand-painted sign, which had brightened Atwater Village’s commercial strip but was deemed too large by city inspectors.

In Weinstein’s eyes, the repeated visits to the store by city inspectors and the loss of the sign were the result of a one-man harassment campaign by someone Weinstein said is opposed to the charity organization because of its connection to homosexuals.

In an effort to drive the store out, he said, Ron Ingram, co-chair of the Atwater Village Citizens and Merchants Assn., lodged a steady stream of complaints with city officials, who duly responded by sending inspectors to the site.

“I think its just flat-out discrimination,” Weinstein said. “He doesn’t want an organization that has many gays and lesbians in it having a presence in Atwater.”

Ingram denied the allegations of bias. He also denied bearing any antagonism toward homosexuals, and said he is gay himself.

City officials and the owner of the building where the shop is housed said the AIDS Healthcare Foundation created many of its own problems by failing to acquire the proper permits before opening the shop for business.

Out of the Closet is on a stretch of Glendale Boulevard zoned for first-hand retail sales. City ordinances require a zoning variance to operate a thrift shop there.

“I don’t think there was harassment,” said Tom LaBonge, field deputy for Councilman John Ferraro, who represents the area. “They went into business without the proper permits, and then they claimed harassment when the city came down on them.”

Weinstein conceded that the store opened without the required variance. He said the directors were unwilling to wait for the many months it would take to process a variance application.

But he said city officials, under pressure from Ingram, focused unusual attention on the thrift store.

“We feel were are being asked to live up to a standard that our neighbors are not being asked to live up to,” he said. “We weren’t doing nothing different than any of our neighbors.”

Ingram acknowledges that he complained to city officials at least a half-dozen times about problems such as trash left behind the store, a clothing rack out in front of the shop, and a shop truck parked illegally there overnight.

Most recently, Ingram said he called police to complain that store employees had erected scaffolding to paint a new sign without first obtaining the proper city permit.

But Ingram dismissed allegations that he is trying to drive the store out of the community, and said he would complain just as much about any other business that was so flagrantly violating the law.

“They just went on like, ‘We’re above the law. We are the AIDS Foundation. And we will win, no matter what, so the hell with you,’ ” Ingram said.

“We don’t have any objection to the thrift store as long as it abides by all statutes, rules and regulations,” Ingram added. “We would do the same for any business. There is no singling him out or selective prosecution.”

Stephen Baxter, an investigator for the Department of Building and Safety, said city building inspectors first visited the store last Oct. 1--the day it opened--and found workers constructing a clinic above the thrift store without permits.

Baxter said the workers were ordered to stop. Two days later, after a second visit, Baxter said, the store was cited for illegal construction and for failing to obtain a zoning variance to operate the thrift store.

On Oct. 23, a city sign inspector ordered the removal of the hand-painted banner, which violated the city sign ordinance because it was painted on canvas and was too big, Baxter said.

In December, the city initiated legal proceedings against the foundation and the building owner for failing to obtain a zoning variance and failing to remove the sign, Baxter said.

The proceedings were halted, however, because the store applied for the variance to operate the store, Baxter said. Construction on the clinic never resumed, Weinstein said, because of lack of funds.

The foundation appealed for permission to continue using the sign, but the request was put on hold because “it would have put the commission in the potentially awkward spot of authorizing a sign that advertises an illegal use,” Baxter said.

Two weeks ago, the variance was finally issued, with the provision that the foundation could not have an AIDS clinic at the site. But, by then, the sign had already been removed.

Some community business leaders said city leaders should have been more lenient and let the sign remain.

“I don’t think there is any business on the boulevard where they couldn’t find something wrong if they wanted to look at every sign and every light fixture,” said Christine Hershey, president of the Boulevard Business Assn.

“It was a wonderful, whimsical sign, and they are a nonprofit charity fighting an epidemic. I mean, give them a break!” Hershey said. “If this was a Catholic charity, no one would have noticed.”