GRANADA HILLS : Theater Proposal OKd Despite Protests

A city zoning board Tuesday approved a proposal to build a nine-screen Mann Theaters complex at 16830 Devonshire St. over the objections of neighbors.

The ruling, by the Los Angeles Board of Zoning Appeals, gives the go-ahead for construction of the 2,400-seat movie house on the site of the soon-to-close J. C. Penney store, he said.

Harry Coleman, a Northridge resident who acted as spokesman for neighbors, said the complex would cause traffic jams. He said neighbors would continue to monitor the project vigilantly.

“This was conducted properly and everything else,” said Coleman. “We lost this case, there’s no other way to look at it. The community just has to live with it now.”

Coleman said the decision by the city Board of Zoning Appeals cannot be appealed to the City Council, and the neighbors plan no further action to stop the project.

Residents in single-family houses in the neighborhood collected hundreds of signatures and reams of documents to support their contention that the theater would promote crime and clog intersections.

They even clipped newspaper ads for films such as “Menace II Society”--shown at Mann theaters elsewhere in Los Angeles--to bolster their claim that the movies shown at the proposed complex would promote crime in the area. And they enlisted the help of the Los Angeles Police Department, which sent a senior lead officer to speak on neighbors’ behalf at the hearing.

Nonetheless, Mann prevailed. The zoning board was apparently convinced that a set of more than two dozen conditions on the permit for the property would control problems on the site. The conditions included requirements that security guards patrol the site, and a free-popcorn offer to entice customers to use the little-noticed parking lot in back of the complex.

“It’s a good project,” said Richard Gervais, land-use analyst for Mann. “The conditions are appropriate and it’s been well thought out.”