With Lingerie Store Closed, Legal Fight Against It Ends

A protracted legal battle ended Wednesday when an Orange County judge dismissed all charges against the owners of a lingerie shop that featured scantily clad models.

Municipal Judge Anthony Rackauckas dropped the 288 criminal misdemeanor charges after Brea Deputy City Atty. Gregory Palmer said Queen Lingerie, at 113 S. Kraemer Blvd., had permanently closed its doors.

Shop owners Hassan Halabi and Nabil Abouriche also paid $1,000 in court costs and vacated the shop as part of a compromise settlement reached Monday, the day the two were scheduled to stand trial.

Their attorney, Laurence A. Young, said his clients agreed to the settlement because the publicity surrounding the case had caused business to fall off.

“We could have gone to court and won but so what? The shop is closing anyway,” Young said, adding that the two men hoped to reopen the business within a month at an undetermined site in Orange County.

The store, which opened in November, featured women modeling lingerie in suggestive poses in one of five theme rooms: a jail cell, a boardroom, a futuristic room, a room with a high-technology motif and one featuring a 15-foot runway, Palmer said.

The city filed charges in February and alleged that the store’s owners operated an adult modeling studio, a public dance hall and a place of public entertainment without the proper licenses.