VFW Post Gets Short Reprieve : Santa Clarita: A judge says the hall can stay open until Jan. 28. City ordered it closed in August.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge Monday gave each side a partial victory in the long battle between a Veterans of Foreign Wars post and the city of Santa Clarita.

Judge Robert H. O’Brien allowed Post 6885 in Sand Canyon to remain open despite the city’s attempts to close it down immediately--but only until Jan. 28. Additionally, he prohibited alcohol sales at the post’s bar, the social heart of the organization, and forbade the veterans to allow “camping”--sleeping in cars or recreational vehicles in the parking lot by those who have had too much to drink.

O’Brien’s ruling was issued four days after he heard arguments by the veterans and the city, which ordered the post closed in August.

It allows the veterans to continue operating under conditions agreed to by both sides in March after the Sand Canyon Homeowners Assn. complained that the facility had become a public nuisance due to loud parties and overnight camping. Under the agreement, camping was prohibited immediately, and sales of alcohol were to be suspended on Wednesday of last week.

“This decision vindicates the city’s position,” Santa Clarita City Atty. Carl Newton said Monday, “and it applies the force of the court to what we had tried to do all along.”

Attorney Gary Symonds, who represents the VFW post, described the judge’s ruling as a “Pyrrhic victory of sorts” and said the veterans have yet to decide if they will appeal.

“There’s been a lot of smoke and fire, but the time machine has been reset,” Symonds said. “We’re right back to exactly where we were before July 4. And the doors are still open.”

During the July 4 weekend and in late August--before Symonds became the post’s attorney--nearby residents complained to the city that some patrons of the bar got drunk and slept it off in campers on the post’s parking lot.

Santa Clarita, contending that the VFW had twice violated its “no-camping” agreement with the city, ordered the veterans on Aug. 27 to shut down the facility immediately.

But the veterans refused to close. On Sept. 18, Symonds argued in court that the veterans had been denied due process and that the city too loosely defined the word “camping.” Judge O’Brien issued a temporary stay, which blocked the city’s closure attempts, and ordered both sides to return for the hearing last Thursday.