ARTICLES
May 2003 ARTICLES
Contents © 2003
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
They're Like the Taliban
Pico Rivera Residents Fight Strip Club
By Maria Kennedy
On Saturday, March 1, protestors marked the one-year anniversary of their fight to get Imperial Show Girls, a strip club located in Pico Rivera, out of their community. The club, owned by brothers Glen and Leroy Smith, has been the source of controversy since it opened January 7, 2002. According to press accounts, the club opened without the necessary permits and Pico Rivera police officers shut it down soon thereafter. Imperial Showgirls then filed a federal lawsuit against the city, alleging violations of its constitutional right to operate. On February 19, 2002 Judge Dickran Tevrizian ruled in favor of Imperial Show Girls, and the club reopened.
Over the past year, Pastor Richard Ochoa of the Lord's Vineyard church in Pico Rivera has picketed the club every weekend. Although the number of protestors has fluctuated throughout the past year, the residents of Pico Rivera have managed to keep a steady presence at the club, which is located in a strip mall on the corner of Slauson and Passons Boulevard.
El Rancho Unified School district superintendent Norbert Janis said that the school district opposes the club because of its location -- the mall that houses the strip club also houses a Seven Eleven store, as well as a McDonald's. "The concern that we have is that the area it's located in has a McDonald's and a doughnut shop all within 40 to 50 feet. The McDonald's is in plain sight of the club," said Janis. "The middle school kids frequent the mall." Janis credited Pastor Ochoa for his efforts in trying to get rid of the club. "The Reverend Ochoa has really been tenacious in this battle," he noted.
Not everyone agrees with this assessment of Ochoa's efforts. Imperial Show Girls' attorney Roger Jon Diamond said that the protestors are actually helping the club. Protestors are not hurting the club, "the club is actually getting better," said Diamond. "The protestors are bringing in more business." But, Diamond said, the protestors are "deceptive and dishonest." He likened them to the former Afghanistan regime -- "they are like the Taliban," he said. "The United States is trying to protect [our] freedom, and these people are trying to impose their concept of morality on everyone else."
Ochoa said that he is disappointed that he does not receive enough support from the local Catholic Church. "They have put in inserts in their bulletin about the protests," he said. "The parishioners come out and protest with us, but the priests don't. The only time a priest came to the protest was early on. Father Joshua Lee came over once or twice." The Catholic parish to which Ochoa refers is St. Mariana de Paderes, located on Passons Boulevard, a few blocks from the club.
Father Fernando Iglesias, pastor at St. Mariana's, denied that his church was doing nothing about the strip club. "I wrote a letter to the mayor, I wrote a letter to the judge, I wrote to the city council," he noted in a telephone interview.
I interviewed Imperial Show Girls co-owner Leroy Smith in front of the club on March 4. When told that members of the community said they did not want a strip club in Pico Rivera, he laughed and replied, "I'm sure there are lots of businesses they don't want in the community. But I have a constitutional right to be here." When asked if there was a market for his business in Pico Rivera, Smith replied, "Yes, there is no adult entertainment here in Pico Rivera." Smith noted that his clientele was not only from Pico Rivera but came "also from the surrounding communities. Typically," he said, "you just don't draw from one city but from that city and surrounding cities."
When asked if the protestors have harmed business for him, Smith replied, "they have. You want to talk about a menace; they are a menace. They scream and yell. They call people names. They have been removed from the shopping center. They are not allowed at the shopping center because they continually violated a court order. The court order told them they could not scream and yell at people or disrupt businesses. They vandalize things; they purposely vandalized my truck on several occasions. They have been arrested for this; they were caught on videotape doing this and were arrested for it. They litter. They leave signs on the grass. They are not allowed to be on the property at all." The Los Angeles County sheriff's department, which has jurisdiction over Pico Rivera, confirmed that there is a court order barring the protestors from the shopping center. "The court order reads, protests 'should not be conducted on the premise including the parking lot of the Slauson Center,'" a sheriff's spokesman told me. The protestors deny Smith's accusations.
Democrat congresswoman Grace Napolitano, in whose district Pico Rivera lies, attended the March 1 demonstration at the club because, her press secretary, Amanda Meek, said, "her constituents wanted her there." When asked if Napolitano was opposed to the club, Meek admitted that the congresswoman both opposed the club and supported its right to exist.
Smith said that he found Napolitano's attendance at the rally disquieting. "She was protesting along with the protestors," he said. "She was quoted in the Whittier Daily News saying that 'this church cannot allow this business to subvert their young males.' I think it's completely wrong for a congresswoman who has swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States to be here protesting my constitutional rights."
Napolitano told this reporter that she was there to support the community. "Pico Rivera is a family-oriented, residential community, and this adult business does not belong there. There is a school less than a mile away, there are other businesses nearby that families go to, and I know that the parents in this neighborhood do not want their children exposed to this adult club."
In an attempt to silence Ochoa, Imperial Show Girls filed a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation) motion. SLAPP motions are civil actions that are filed against private citizens by entities that seek to silence them. Typically large corporations use them to intimidate citizens from protesting unwanted activity by the company. "He sued me with a SLAPP motion," said Ochoa. "Later his lawyer realized that he had made a mistake. I hired a law firm who has experience with these suits, and they are representing me." Currently, the motion is pending in the Los Angeles superior court.
Bob Spencer, communications director for the city of Pico Rivera, said that the city is dealing with the controversy via legal channels. "The adult business opened on a weekend without anyone knowing about it," he said. "They did not have a health department permit, a fire department permit, or a business license. It was located outside of the adult entertainment zone." Spencer said the city shut down the club "within 48 hours after it opened." With regards to the lawsuit filed against the city by the club, he said, "the judge claimed that our ordinance and zoning order was unconstitutional." Spencer noted that the city's adult entertainment ordinance, which mandated that strip clubs not be located 1,000 feet from a school, park, church or residence, had been in place for 22 years. After the judge ruled against the city, the council re worded the ordinance not to allow strip clubs within 100 feet of residences, schools, parks or churches.
"One of the larger issues is the lack of space," said Spencer. "Pico Rivera is a very tiny city. We are not allowed to dump adult businesses, for example, in an industrial zone. The ordinance that we had protected us for 22 years."