On the Outs Over the Inn

The jerky videotape plays like a local version of “The Blair Witch Project.” Dark and unfocused, it pans a crowded, shadowy street as barely audible voices mutter barely intelligible things. The camera settles on a clock reading 12:45 as the slightly more distinct voice of a narrator explains.

“It’s 12:45 a.m.,” the tired female voice says, “and they just got out of the bar. They’re loud -- we can’t sleep. It’d be nice if we could sleep, but we’re all wide awake.”

Welcome to the world of Anne Lemen: vacation cottage proprietor, amateur videographer, self-described anti-chaos crusader and general thorn in the side of the Village Inn, Balboa Island’s only major bar and almost-historic icon.

Lemen’s supporters -- numbering, she says, more than 400 in this wealthy residential enclave of Newport Beach -- call her the Erin Brokovich of Balboa, a designation she embraces.

Detractors, including Aric Toll, who owns the restaurant-bar in question, say she’s a pest whose rantings have seriously hurt business and prompted a judge’s order to shut up.

The Issues

She says that patrons of the inn next door have kept her up all hours by shouting obscenities, breaking windows and urinating in her flowerbed. He says that that’s all bunk: A doorman/bouncer keeps them in line and, besides, his customers are among Balboa’s finest.

She says the loud music drives her insane and prompted her daughter to drop out of high school; he says the noise is well within the limits set by the city.

She says the place is rife with prostitution, drug dealing or worse; he calls such charges absurd fantasies leveled at an establishment acting as a good neighbor and well within the law.

He says she ought to have thought of all these things before moving next door to what many consider the Cheers of Balboa. She says would love to move but can’t sell her property because, well, it’s right next door to the Cheers of Balboa.

“I’m not the felon; I’m the town hero,” says Lemen, 52.

“I’m helping everyone’s property values. I’m trying to save our precious island.”

Counters Toll, 36, who took over ownership of the place two years ago and is trying to make it thrive: “I can’t get into her mind. She has harassed the business and been a nuisance to this business. She has been on a campaign of misinformation for many, many years.”

The foundation for those years was laid in 1928 when Anton and Wilhelmina Hershey, German immigrants unrelated to the Hersheys of chocolate fame, took jobs at the old Little Market at Park and Marine, across the street from two lots on which the inn now stands.

Anton, who had been a seller of houseplants in Germany, borrowed $800 from several friends to buy the lots and turn them into a nursery.

Because Wilhelmina liked to cook, the couple added a small room to serve hamburgers. With the repeal of prohibition in 1933, they obtained a liquor license and called the place Hershey’s Cafe and German Beer Garden.

Local legend has it that among the patrons were James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and Bing Crosby.

Over the next 65 years, the establishment was leased to a long line of operators who ran it under various names, including the Park Avenue Cafe, Whites Cafe, V.I.P. and, finally, the Village Inn. In 1998, owner Lance Wagner remodeled the interior, adding a new kitchen, bar and dining room.

And two years later, Toll, a chef, bought the place with the intention of restoring it to some measure of its former glory.

No one remembers exactly when the live music began. Lemen thinks it was about 1990, the year after she bought the modest duplex next door with the upstairs vacation rental she now calls Island Cot- tage.

But in the intervening years, she says, the erstwhile garden to the stars has made a steady march away from sobriety and quietude toward irritating Dionysian excess.

“I’ve seen 50 or more drunk people standing outside, screaming obscenities, waiting for taxis,” she says. “It’s a different crowd, a very nasty group. For the first time ever, we’ve had street fights. The first thing I tried was crying myself to sleep.”

When that didn’t work, Lemen drew up a petition protesting the restaurant’s request that its live entertainment permit be expanded to include amplified drums and guitars. To bolster her case, she started videotaping what she considered the excesses of Village Inn customers on the streets in front of her house.

By going door to door and talking to people on their lawns and patios, Lemen says, she persuaded more than 400 to sign her petition.

Then the he-said/she-said argument took a bitter turn: He said she got those signatures by lying and slandering; she said that is a slander and lie.

“Previous owners had threatened to sue her,” Toll says, “but never followed through.”

He did, and last month won a Superior Court judgment instructive in its wording. After listening to the testimony of various witnesses regarding statements purportedly made by Lemen during her anti-Inn campaign, Judge Gerald G. Johnston wrote: “The Court is convinced by a preponderance of the evidence ... that [despite her denials] the defendant did make the statements attributed to her.”

A Judge Rules

Lemen, the judge went on, is therefore “prohibited from making the following defamatory statements” to third parties: that the Village Inn “sells alcohol to minors ... stays open until 6 a.m. ... makes sex videos ... is involved in child pornography ... distributes illegal drugs ... has Mafia connections ... encourages lesbian activities ... participates in prostitution and acts as a whorehouse” or “serves tainted food.”

Lemen denies ever saying any of those things and, anyway, promises never to say them again. Her lawyer is appealing the ruling on the basis that it violates her right of free speech.

“It’s prior restraint,” attorney Michael Bush says. “It’s government censorship about what you can or cannot say in the future -- that’s 1st Amendment activity.”

City officials, while acknowledging the neighborhood crusader’s concerns regarding noise, describe the Village Inn as a worthwhile establishment that’s not a major offender.

“It’s not a big problem,” said Sgt. Steve Shulman, a spokesman for the Newport Beach Police Department.

“We get an occasional call, but we get occasional calls on most business establishments. I wouldn’t consider it a chronic problem.”

Sharon Wood, assistant city manager, described the Inn as an asset to the people of Balboa. “I think, overall, it’s a good place,” she said. “It’s had problems from time to time, but I know that they are working with us to resolve them. It’s been there for so long, I think, that it’s a fixture in the community.”

Early last month, the city quietly approved the Village Inn’s application for expanded live entertainment, despite Lemen’s petition. And now, Toll says, he’s trying to pack ‘em in to help rebound from the recent 25% decline in patronage he attributes to Lemen’s crusade.

“As far as I can tell,” he says, “she’s affected three times as many people as live on this entire island. She really hurt us -- we’re still trying to recover from her petition.”

Tom Williams, 60, of Newport Beach said he has been coming to the Village Inn for a while, mostly for the lively music and pretty women.

“Since I was 21,” he said. “In those days it was ruled by the jarheads, and all the girls were schoolteachers. Now it’s kind of my generation’s place.”

The Village Inn’s location is appropriate, Williams argued.

“You’ve got to have some entertainment somewhere. You can’t have it in the middle of the desert.”