ANAHEIM : Nude Dancing Club Owner to Contest Ban

Vasken Tatarian thought he had cleared all the city’s hurdles after spending what he said was $200,000 to open a nude dance club called the Flamingo Theater.

But the city threw up a big roadblock last week after some neighboring business owners expressed outrage over the club proposal.

Last Tuesday, the City Council passed an emergency, 45-day moratorium on adult businesses, effectively blocking the club’s opening.

Tatarian, 34, of Cerritos and his attorney are scheduled to meet with Mayor Tom Daly today and intend to address the council tonight.

“They have no right to do this. This is a First Amendment issue,” said Tatarian, who owns several convenience stores with his family in the North County area.

“If they didn’t want me to open my club, they could have told me from day one. They didn’t. They waited until I spent all my money before they decided to tell me. What the hell is going on? It’s not fair.”

City Atty. Jack White, however, said the city is well within its rights to impose the temporary ban, which prohibits sex-oriented businesses in areas zoned as limited industrial.

Tatarian wants to set up his club at 618 East Ball Road, which falls within a limited industrial zone.

During the 45-day moratorium, the city staff will study the area for its suitability for a sex-oriented business.

The staff may recommend to the council either that the nude dancing club is appropriate at the Ball Road site or that it, along with other similar clubs, should be outlawed in limited industrial zones, White said.

Some businesses are already protesting the proposed nude dancing club. They argue Tatarian is using the First Amendment and the right to free expression as a cloak.

“It is up to this council, Anaheim residents, property and business owners to do (everything) possible to keep Anaheim free from the causes of moral decay,” said Gerald R. Knudson Jr., an attorney for Bryan Industrial Properties, which owns a host of adjacent properties.

Concurring with such complaints, council members are looking for ways to stymie the spread of strip clubs in Anaheim.

Council members say such clubs often increase crime and devalue surrounding properties.

“The nudie things around the city of Anaheim bother me to no end,” said Councilman Irv Pickler. “They pull an area down and bring in the type of element we don’t want in our city.”

But no matter how sympathetic the council may be with the concerns of neighboring businesses, White emphasized the council still must allow the club to operate somewhere in the city--as long as it meets restrictions in the city’s 35-page sex-oriented business ordinance.

Less than a year old, the ordinance was forged after the city lost a legal battle to prevent another similar club from opening.

In 1993, a federal court struck down a previous city ordinance that banned nude dancing at a public establishment if the city believed such entertainment was detrimental to the surrounding neighborhood.

The court ruled the ordinance was “constitutionally vague.”

The city has 11 “sex-oriented businesses,” said White, ranging from a bikini bar to one other all-nude dancing club.

White added that there are 22 places in the city where adult businesses are legally permitted.

“I can sympathize with people who say, ‘We don’t want this in our community, it’s bad.’ But the Supreme Court and the lower courts are saying you can’t keep these things out of your community because you don’t like them,” White said.

Tatarian said he will run a proper establishment and that his club will not degrade the neighborhood.

The Flamingo Theater, which can seat up to 60 patrons, will feature nude dancing but will not serve alcoholic beverages.

“I’m a No. 1 Christian guy, I go to church every Sunday,” Tatarian said. “I don’t smoke. I don’t even have a traffic ticket. This is a business.”