300 Protest at Site of Proposed Adult Business

More than 300 residents picketed a proposed nude-dance theater Sunday to rally public opposition as the issue goes to trial this week.

“A lot of people don’t know that this is no movie or dinner theater,” Ken Bascom, 47, said of the Pelican Theater. “This is a nude juice bar that will admit anyone at least 18 years old. We want everybody to know that when sexually oriented businesses move into an area, crime follows and property values go down, and we don’t want that to happen in the city of La Habra.”

The City Council last year unanimously rejected a request by owners Bill Badi Gammoh and Akbar Mehr to open the nude theater at Imperial Highway west of Harbor Boulevard. Gammoh and Mehr now are suing the city, seeking a reversal of the council’s action. The trial begins Tuesday in Santa Ana Federal Court.

Residents of La Habra and neighboring Fullerton, who recently formed Citizens for a Better La Habra, say they staged the protest to raise public awareness and persuade would-be customers to stay away.

Cathi Miller, 43, of La Habra said that when she first drove by several weeks ago, she thought the Pelican was a movie theater. When she learned what was proposed, she joined the protest group. “There’s enough temptation and pornography without it being live,” she said.

Doug Wubbena, 30, who lives about half a mile from the theater in Fullerton, said that “to think an anti-family business in Orange County would be tolerated is outrageous.”

Neither Gammoh nor Mehr could be reached for comment Sunday. But at a public hearing in October, Gammoh argued that he had complied with all city requirements and that the Pelican Theater was “the proper business for its location.”

Organizers said they expect many residents to observe the trial. If the Pelican is allowed to open, they said, they will stage protests in an effort to shut it down.

“When they open,” said La Habra resident Jim McInerney, “we’ll be here every single day and night. . . . It’s their constitutional right to open up, and it’s our constitutional right to protest.”

Cities cannot ban adult businesses but can limit them to certain areas and impose other regulations. In La Habra, adult businesses are not allowed within 275 feet of any church, school or park. The Pelican meets that requirement.

When officials rejected the application, they said the proposal did not provide adequate parking and had the potential for attracting crime.

The owners say they will serve only nonalcoholic beverages. At a September hearing, Mehr told the council, “Alcohol is the mother of all evil. Dancing is not.”