Orange County Focus is dedicated on Monday to analysis of community news, a look atwhat’s ahead and the voices of local people. : PERSPECTIVE : Home of Disney Resists Becoming Home of Sex Shops Too

The city famous for the archetypal family vacation spot, Disneyland, is determined not to become infamous as an enclave of nude dancing and other adult-oriented businesses.

“I would ban them outright,” said City Councilman Lou Lopez, also a veteran police officer with the city. “But we’ve been advised there’s not a whole lot we can do about it.”

Anaheim, like a number of other cities in Orange County, has found to its chagrin that the free market and the U.S. Constitution shield sex-oriented businesses from the moral wrath of a community intent on driving or keeping them out.

Arguments that such establishments violate ethical standards, increase crime and devalue surrounding properties have failed to persuade the courts to lift the cloak of protection for the businesses.

No lesser tribunal than the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that nude dancing is protected under freedom of expression codes, though justices have allowed local jurisdictions to restrict sex-oriented businesses.

So, though they may be relegated to certain quadrants of a city, sex-oriented business continue to thrive, owners say, because they supply a service for which there is a demand. Furthermore, the owners contend, their businesses create jobs and contribute to a city’s tax base.

Orange County has scores of sex-oriented businesses, a category that includes adult book and video shops; and bikini, topless and nude juice bars. And officials say that the number of applications to open new adult establishments is steadily rising.

“More and more seem to be popping up in the city,” Lopez said. “It’s just so frustrating that we can’t do more.”

Cities lost some potential firepower earlier this year when an Assembly committee failed to pass a bill that would have strengthened prohibitions on public nudity.

The proposal, Assembly Bill 1200, may yet be resurrected, said an aide to Assemblyman Jim Morrissey (R-Santa Ana) who sponsored it. The bill would have defined public nudity, making it easier for cities to pass ordinances against specific practices.

“In Anaheim, we are committed to good family values,” Lopez said last week. “Having these types of bars contributes to the breakdown of the family, I believe.”

The bill ran into trouble in part because some cities objected to the idea of a statewide law that would dictate local standards, Sean Wallentine, a spokesman in Morrissey’s office.

“If they want the businesses in Marin County and not in Irvine,” Wallentine said, “then they felt that should be their choice.”

The choice of much of Orange County, judging from public statements by elected officials and a number of residents, would be to do away with adult businesses entirely.

Tustin, for instance, has no adult businesses, and the City Council passed an ordinance last year that makes it “virtually impossible” for any to open.

“We heard rumblings about an adult-oriented business coming here,” said City Manager Bill Huston. “We figured we weren’t taking any chances.”

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Tustin’s law prohibits any such establishment near residential areas, schools or churches. Because the city’s businesses and homes are in close proximity, Huston said, such businesses have virtually no where to open without violating the ordinance.

“We’d be polite,” Huston said. “But we’d tell them they can’t come into our city.”

The situation has been more complicated in sprawling Anaheim, which lost a landmark court case in 1993. A federal judge struck down an ordinance that had allowed the city to deny permits to sex-oriented businesses if officials deemed that such entertainment might be detrimental to the community. The court found the ordinance “constitutionally vague.”

Anaheim responded by drafting another ordinance in 1994 that allowed the establishments but only under specific conditions. For instance, most are restricted to industrial zones in the northwest part of town, and they must at least 1,000 feet away from schools, churches and parks.

That ordinance too is being challenged as unconstitutional by the owner of a restaurant and dance club called Mr. J’s, who argues that the new law’s real aim is to prevent new businesses from opening at all, said City Atty. Jack White.

The owner contends in a lawsuit filed last month in Orange County Superior Court that Anaheim has deliberately zoned too few areas for such establishments, thus making it unduly difficult to open a legitimate business, White said. No hearing date has been set.

The attorney for Mr. J’s, Jeff Farano, did not return several phone calls for comment last week.

City officials insist that their new ordinance will withstand judicial scrutiny. “We clearly have a right to zone these businesses in a place where they will present the least problem for the city,” White said.