Cop Show: Taut and Riveting

Oops (The Movie): To shoot a film is one thing. To shoot a film crew is something else.

According to Justin Page, the LAPD came perilously close to accomplishing the latter last weekend when it forgot to read the script and mistook a movie for the real thing.

Page, a visitor from England, says he was on location at the abandoned Sun Spot motel in Pacific Palisades, where his girlfriend was acting in a production “in which individuals are horrifically mutated and (toy) hand weapons are brandished.”

Trouble was, no one bothered to tell the cops it was just a movie.

Predictably, police started getting calls from citizens inquiring about all those gun-toting ghouls up in the rubble. They had no choice but to assume it was the real thing.

Page says he was daydreaming near some parked cars about 5 p.m. last Sunday when a police chopper started circling overhead and he was approached by two officers. One asked, “Are there people with guns here?”

Page assured them that it was merely a filming in progress and that the guns were fake. Apparently, he wasn’t convincing. Moments later he found himself locked in the back of the police car as two more squad cars arrived.

Page, now screaming, reiterated that it was only a movie, but still to no avail. He says he watched helplessly as the officers, guns drawn, marched off over the dunes--toward his girlfriend, who was armed with a fake Uzi.

To add to his stress, the police radio crackled with talk of “suspects bearing automatic weapons.”

Then it was over. The police reappeared, leading the film crew back to the parking lot. There were no arrests and no injuries, but Page says he’s still terrified.

He says he bears no malice toward the police, but says he’s convinced that the script saved his girlfriend’s life. Her part required her to aim the “Uzi” at a fellow actor, then fall as if shot herself--just as a real-life police helicopter was sounding its warning siren.

Accustomed to citizens confusing movies with the real thing, police at the West L.A. Division of the LAPD were markedly more ho-hum about the incident. “My impression is that whatever happened was pretty routine--at least for us,” Sgt. Bill Hunt said.

Another police spokesman said production companies often notify them if any on-location gunplay is planned. It’s not required by law--just by common sense.

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Tables and red tape: Visitors to Venice Beach who sit at the small concrete picnic tables to people-watch at the Muscle Beach athletic complex and nearby paddle-ball courts probably don’t know it, but they are seated on the latest controversy to engulf Ocean Front Walk.

A handful of well-meaning merchants had 12 tables bolted to the ground by the boardwalk in 1990. At the beginning of this year, two other merchants decided to have 15 more tables placed just to the north. Problems surfaced while installation was in progress.

Someone who didn’t like the tables called the California Coastal Commission, which has authority over any permanent development along the coast. The commission then informed the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department, which supervises the boardwalk, that the tables were illegal because a Coastal Zone Development Permit had not been obtained.

Recreation and Parks officials said that as word of the flap has spread, they have heard from three different factions. One wants the tables removed. One wants them to stay. A third wants them placed elsewhere along the walk.

The Coastal Commission has asked the city officials to hold a public hearing on the matter. That hearing will be early next month; no specific date has been set yet. After that meeting, the commission plans to conduct its own public hearing and then make a decision.

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Tough guys, tough dogs: As the Los Angeles City Council wrestled recently with a proposal to keep gang members out of public parks and other recreational facilities, Westside Councilwoman Ruth Galanter decided the time was ripe to confront another public safety issue. So she offered an amendment to prohibit leashed, menacing dogs from being paraded around these same areas.

Galanter’s motion declared that aggressive and combative dogs, encouraged by their owners to frighten innocent passersby, have been an increasing problem at parks and other public places on the Westside.

While not disagreeing, Council President John Ferraro told Galanter he thought the gang and dog problems were separate issues. After a brief discussion, Galanter agreed to bring her motion back at a later time.

It turned out to be an adroit move. Galanter’s proposal passed without discussion last week. Under it, the city attorney’s office was ordered to draw up an ordinance making it unlawful for an animal to be used to scare people in a public place.

The gang issue, meanwhile, has encountered a host of questions, not the least of which concerns its constitutionality. It is scheduled for more discussion Tuesday.

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A different drummer: As usual, West Hollywood Mayor Sal Guarriello was going his own way.

While the rest of the City Council sat through a study session last Monday on how to revitalize the East End, go-it-alone Guarriello opted for a debate on the June 8 card club ballot initiative. Because of a City Hall scheduling glitch, the two sessions were held at the same time at opposite ends of town.

Guarriello, who fiercely opposes the legalized-gambling measure, said he chose the Public Safety Commission’s debate because that’s where the imminent action is.

“I felt the gaming issue was very, very important because it’s coming right up,” he said.

No one seemed to mind. At the study session, Mayor Pro Tem Abbe Land noted that Guarriello was tending to the gambling issue.

Coincidentally, both meetings touched on the East End. Owners of the Cavendish West Hollywood club, the sponsors of the gambling measure, want to move to a new site on La Brea Avenue. They say it would help revive the neighborhood. But the city task force appearing at the study session has quite a different vision for the street--a special entertainment-industry zone. No card club.

The overlapping sessions proved one thing, though: Even on City Hall’s cable channel, gambling makes better TV.

The debate was shown live. You’ll have to catch the study session on tape.

* Council meetings this week: * Beverly Hills: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, 450 N. Crescent Drive, (310) 285-2400. * Culver City: no meeting. * Los Angeles: 10 a.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, 200 N. Spring St. (213) 485-3126. * Malibu: no meeting. * Santa Monica: no meeting. * West Hollywood: 7 p.m. Monday, West Hollywood Park Auditorium, 647 N. San Vicente Blvd., (310) 854-7460.

Correspondent Jeff Kramer and staff writers Ken Ellingwood and Lee Harris contributed to this report.