Cities Seek Power to Move Adult Shops : Laws: Municipalities want state justices’ approval to compel relocation even if it puts the stores out of business.

Lawyers for a coalition of California cities on Tuesday asked the state Supreme Court to give municipalities more power to force adult bookstores to relocate, even if it could put them out of business.

The court, hearing arguments in a test of free speech against efforts to curb crime and blight, was urged to overturn a 1991 appeal court decision striking down a National City zoning ordinance on grounds the stores were not provided with economically practical alternative sites.

“It’s not up to the cities to become business partners with adult entertainment establishments and find them places that are going to make them money,” National City Assistant City Atty. Linda Kaye Harter told the justices. “That’s something that cities are not equipped to deal with.”

The cities of Los Angeles, San Diego and more than 50 other municipalities joined in a brief backing National City, warning that few cities could effectively enforce ordinances to regulate pornography if they were required to guarantee commercially viable locations. Almost all cities in the state have zoning laws restricting adult establishments.

But attorneys for a bookstore challenging the ordinance asked the justices to uphold the appeal court ruling. The improper and thinly disguised purpose of the ordinance was to drive out a constitutionally protected establishment, they said.

“If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s probably a duck,” said John H. Weston, a Beverly Hills attorney. “This ordinance quacks.”

The courts in past decisions have permitted cities to use zoning laws to disperse or concentrate adult bookstores within the community as a means of protecting the urban environment.

Under the National City ordinance, such establishments cannot be located within 1,000 feet of a residential area or 1,500 feet of a school, park or another adult business. An exception allows location of an adult establishment in an enclosed retail mall, isolated from view from the street.

National City sought to enforce the ordinance in 1989 against Chuck’s Bookstore, owned by Steven Weiner. Lawyers for the store challenged the law, contending it would improperly force the store to close. Relocating on legally available but undeveloped land would be prohibitively expensive, and the three malls in town refused to rent space, the attorneys said.

A state Court of Appeal in San Diego ruled in March, 1991, that the ordinance improperly denied the bookstore a practical alternative and thus violated the 1st Amendment.