Nude Juice Bar Plan Angers Neighbors

The city’s decision to allow a nude dance theater in west Anaheim came as bad news to some local residents and businesses, and to municipal officials in nearby Buena Park.

Donald L. Bone, a Buena Park councilman, said he was “shocked and concerned” about a sex-oriented business opening so near the city’s eastern border.

Known as the Imperial Theater, the “nude juice bar” is planned for 2640 W. Woodland Drive near La Palma and Magnolia avenues. Bone said he is especially concerned that teenagers would be allowed to watch exotic dancers at the theater.

“By making it a juice bar,” he said, “now you open it up to 18-year-olds. How hard is it for a 16- or 17-year-old to get hold of a false ID and get into that place? I see a tremendous potential for problems.”

John Poole, Anaheim’s code enforcement manager, said, “We’re not happy about it either.” But, he said, free speech rights guaranteed by the 1st Amendment prevent cities from banning sex-oriented businesses.

Also upset about the nude theater is Cindy Crowe, senior accountant with the Evangelical Christian Credit Union on Magnolia Avenue.

“We’re going to be smack across the street from it,” Crowe said. “To me, it’s really a sad commentary on our times that something like this is allowed to open in our community, and we can’t do anything about it.”

Crowe said she is concerned that the theater would lead to increased crime, lower property values and “moral degradation of the community.”

“We do have a lot of families that come on our property and bring their children,” Crowe said. “You’re not going to want your kids exposed to this.”

Roger Jon Diamond, an attorney representing Mohammad Johar, who applied to open the theater, has emphasized that the Imperial Theater will conform with all applicable laws in Anaheim, and has argued that it will have no negative impact.

But Debra Mokhtari, who lives nearby, said she is concerned because schoolchildren will be walking past the theater.

“This just isn’t the appropriate place,” said Mokhtari, who has a child attending Marshall Elementary School in west Anaheim. The presence of a nude theater, she said, would produce “a serious deterioration of the family values we want for our kids.”