Out With the Old...In With the New...Dance Permit Debate Has City Hall Reeling

In the week since the Los Angeles City Council postponed a vote on whether to override the mayor’s veto of a dance permit for a small, out-of-the-way Hollywood nightclub, the issue’s unlikely antagonists--Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg and Mayor Richard Riordan--have been working overtime not only to win the necessary votes, but also to discredit each other.

City Hall fax machines have been buzzing with a blizzard of documents, phones are ringing, e-mail is flying and calendars are filling with lunch dates. The council chambers were abuzz again Wednesday, with both sides lobbying every vote in sight.

Last week, when Goldberg realized she didn’t have the 12 votes necessary to override the mayoral veto, she obtained a postponement; Wednesday, she came up short again, then proceeded to push through a motion compelling her colleagues to reconsider the question at every single council meeting until late May, when the 60-day opportunity to reverse the veto expires.

The frenzy has left more than a few council observers and even some lawmakers bewildered. Is all this really about a dance permit?

Both Goldberg and Riordan say it is. Nothing personal, they insist.

Meanwhile, the back-stabbing proceeds unabated.

Goldberg is attempting to discredit the permit’s main neighborhood opponent--George Willard, owner of the Chesterfield Hotel, located just a parking lot away from the Hollywood Moguls nightclub. Willard has appealed approval of the dance permit all the way, citing noise and nuisance issues.

“If he hasn’t lived up to his promises up until now, why should we trust him this time?” asked Willard, who has sued Hollywood Moguls’ owner Phil Duff and recently won a nuisance settlement with the club’s insurance company for $25,000. “I am not applying for a dance hall in my hotel. I’m not the problem here.”

But Willard and his hotel have a few problems, too, city officials say. On numerous occasions, the police have been summoned to investigate complaints that drug dealing, prostitution and lewd conduct were occurring on the premises. Not so, says the mayor’s staff.

“The issue of his building is not the issue before the council,” said Deputy Mayor Stephanie Bradfield. “Nor is it an issue before the mayor. If there are problems, they shouldn’t get mixed up.”

Then there’s the campaign against Duff, the nightclub’s owner. While the mayor’s office hints darkly of sinister activities at the club, documents show Duff’s “violations” of his existing permit amount to things like playing music for 15 minutes past his midnight curfew and refusing to pay sewer charges.

Not exactly Sodom-and-Gomorrah sort of stuff, but the lobbying over it has become so intense that one councilman scuttled into another lawmaker’s office when he saw Goldberg following him this week. Several city officials say they’re feeling more than a little browbeaten, as first the councilwoman and then the mayor’s office demand that they scrape up every allegation possible against one side or the other. The mayor’s office denied taking part in any such action.

“This is really a petty neighborhood squabble that has reached this level,” said a slightly incredulous Bridget Magill, manager of the club, a half-block off Hollywood Boulevard. “There is much more going on here, but what is it?”

Council members asked the same question during their discussion of the issue.

“There’s something here that we’re not being told,” Councilman Joel Wachs said in an impassioned speech aimed at encouraging his colleagues to learn more about the issues before reaching their decisions. He supports the dance permit--and Goldberg. “I think what’s involved here is important. . . . We should find out.”

Theories abound as to why both sides are so entrenched in their positions. Some believe Goldberg likes the club, which is located across the street from the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center and hosts numerous fund-raisers. Last year, for example, the club was used for such an event by then-mayoral candidate--and Riordan opponent--Tom Hayden.

Others, like Goldberg and council President John Ferraro, believe the mayor may have received some faulty advice.

“I think he got bad information, he took action on that bad information, and now he’s trying to defend his position,” Goldberg said, adding that she hopes her colleagues like Wachs and Hal Bernson will sway the mayor to withdraw his veto.

Not likely, mayoral aides say.

“There was a very serious discussion based on the facts in the file about where he wanted to go with it,” Bradfield said. “We told him both sides of the facts in hand and the politics.”

While Bradfield acknowledged that the nightclub’s violations of its permits don’t appear to be flagrant, she said that, taken over time, they amount to total disregard for the conditions imposed on the club.

“One at a time, they’re not egregious,” the Riordan aide said. “All together, over a period of seven or eight years, they show a serious problem.”

For his part, the nightclub owner sat in his office earlier this week, stacks of documents and files before him, trying to make sense of a political debate far more complicated than he expected.

“This is a land-use issue,” Duff said between phone calls and pages. “The only question should be whether this entertainment place should have dancing.”

Both sides brought a contingent of supporters to the council meeting; Willard brought a group of people he said were former and current residents of the Chesterfield, and Duff came with a troop of his Hollywood supporters.

One speaker, from the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, which cited the club for numerous permit violations--the basis for the mayor’s veto--raised eyebrows around the chamber. Her presence was considered highly unusual in this kind of debate; Goldberg said she was unsure who asked the ABC to attend the council meeting.

Hilarie R. Vazquez, a supervising investigator, said the department remains neutral in the political debate, but “we’re just stating the facts as they appear.”

For that reason, Councilman Nate Holden said he would support the mayor’s position. In another unusual twist, Goldberg has even attempted to sway Holden, leading an aide to say: “Can you believe she’s had to beg him for favors?”

Holden asked his colleagues how they will reconcile the technical violations found by the ABC. “What are you going to do about that?” he said. “Close your eyes? I won’t do that.”

Along with Holden, mayoral aides also counted councilmen Richard Alarcon and Rudy Svorinich as solidly on their side.

So, as of Wednesday, it was Riordan 3, Goldberg 11.