Strip Club in Anaheim Reopens After Judge’s Ruling : Courts: City’s adult entertainment ordinance is called unconstitutional for second time this week. Some owners of businesses near Sahara Theater plan to leave.

A controversial striptease club opened near Anaheim Stadium on Friday evening after a judge ruled that the city’s adult entertainment ordinance was unconstitutional.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Richard O. Frazee Sr. said the ordinance, which gives city officials wide latitude on whether to grant operating permits to adult entertainment businesses, was “unconstitutional on its face.” The Sahara Theater opened within hours in a small shopping center.

Some of the Sahara’s neighbors already were planning to leave.

Denice Munier-Martin, a chiropractor whose office is next to the Sahara, said she plans to move when her lease expires in April.

“I have had patients tell me that if it opens, they won’t come here,” she said. “My two associates are on 30-day contracts and they said they will leave immediately. It’s not fair. We were here first and now we have to leave.”

David Bowdin, who owns Anaheim Schwinn, a bicycle shop in the center, said he will leave next spring. Ironically, 20 years ago he campaigned for the man who is now the Sahara’s attorney, Roger J. Diamond, when he ran for the state Legislature. Now, Bowdin said, the business Diamond represented “is going to bring prostitutes, drug dealers and other assorted scumbags to my front door.”

Amer El Rousan, the Sahara’s owner, and his supporters clapped after the ruling and made plans to open the bar quickly.

“I’m very excited,” El Rousan said. “I plan to show my neighbors that I can run a good, clean business.”

The Sahara had sued the city after code enforcement officers last December closed the business for having topless waitresses and no entertainment permit.

The Sahara filed a second suit in May after the City Council refused to grant it an adult entertainment permit, with Councilman Irv Pickler calling it a “dirty and sleazy” business.

Frazee said he would not be able to officially issue a temporary injunction blocking the city ordinance until July 26, but he warned city officials that it would be “very dangerous” to enforce the ordinance in the meantime.

It was the second time this week that a judge had declared the ordinance unconstitutional. On Monday, federal District Court Judge Richard A. Gadbois Jr. ruled that dancers at Sandraella’s bar, formerly called the Wounded Knee Saloon, could go topless, because adult businesses are protected by the First Amendment. He wrote that cities can regulate where the businesses are located, but that Anaheim’s ordinance gave its council “excessive discretion” because it allows officials to consider whether the business could “adversely affect” a school, church or park.

Diamond said he will ask the court to order the city to pay his attorney fees. The theater also could seek monetary damages to cover its losses since its forced closure, he said.

The City Council “tried to grandstand for cable television and the people who came to the council meeting to speak and deny my client his license and it’s going to wind up costing the taxpayers money,” Diamond said after the ruling.