San Gabriel Valley : COMMERCIAL STRIP
The owners of the Red Hot Theatre Cafe in Pasadena want their club a bit hotter, so they’ve filed a lawsuit saying the city’s restrictions on strip joints violate their right to free expression.
Pasadena officials dismissed the suit as premature.
“They haven’t even requested the rezoning they require or the new permit,” Councilman William E. Thomson Jr. said Tuesday.
An attorney for the club did not return telephone calls.
Located in the 3500 block of Foothill Boulevard near Hastings Ranch homes, the club last year got permits to showcase comedians and live music. And that, say some neighbors, is more than enough.
“This is like buying a house in a residential neighborhood and then declaring it’s going to be pizza business,” Thomson said.
Pasadena’s codes limit adult entertainment such as strip bars to commercially zoned property with a special permit. The nightclub is on east Pasadena land zoned for industrial use.
The federal suit, filed Aug. 21, seeks an injunction to prevent the city from enforcing the adult entertainment codes.
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