L.A. Can’t Use Zoning to Shut Adult Bookstore

A little-known provision of zoning law may prevent city officials from closing a Canoga Park adult bookstore that neighbors say attracts customers who sometimes engage in lewd conduct in public.

Residents who live near Le Sex Shoppe, located on the 21600 block of Sherman Way, had asked city officials to declare the pornographic book and video store a public nuisance and shut it down. A hearing on the matter was scheduled for Feb. 4.

But city officials recently found that the zoning rule they hoped to invoke does not apply to the store, and the hearing was canceled.

According to Jackie Brainard, an aide to Councilwoman Joy Picus, a business can be declared a nuisance and shut down only if it is within 300 feet of property zoned for residential use.

Although there are apartments within 300 feet of the store, they are on land that has been zoned for commercial use, she said.

“It’s a technicality, but the law doesn’t apply,” Brainard said.

However, city officials are looking into ways to modify the rule so they can proceed with efforts to close down the shop, she said.

“We are going to ask the Planning Department how we can solve the problem so the residential neighborhood can be protected from this business,” she said.

Brainard said area neighbors are not opposed to the material being sold at Le Sex Shoppe. However, the store--one of a chain owned by Erotic Words and Pictures Inc.--attracts many customers who later have sexual encounters in the alleys of the neighborhood, she said.

“I haven’t heard anybody moaning about the fact that they sell dirty pictures inside,” she said. “It’s a matter of explicit open sexual activities, used condoms left around and sex in cars around the area.”

Patric Quinn, president of the Owensmouth Citizens Committee, said the bookshop “is a place where people go and cruise for other people.”

Later, he said, couples will often have sex outside. Area residents are often propositioned, and Quinn said other businesses have suffered as a result.

But G. Randall Garrou, an attorney for the store, said the business has made an effort to be a good neighbor. He said it has hired security guards and put a fence around the back entrance to separate the parking lot from the alley.

He said he believes that the neighbors’ complaints are based more on what goes on inside the store rather than outside it.

“There are a couple of neighbors who would not be satisfied no matter what happened,” Garrou said. “They just want the bookstore out of there.”