TONY DODERO -- Editor’s Notebook

Like most Daily Pilot readers, I also think it’s distasteful that smack

dab in the middle of a Costa Mesa neighborhood is a home called the

Panther Palace.

A home where adults, young and old, venture in to partake in varying

sexual escapades.

But I disagree with and don’t understand some readers who say our recent

article about this West Side residence amounted to promotion of

prostitution.

Maybe it will help if I explain how the story wound up on the front

pages, two weeks ago.

Our police reporter approached me about a tip he received about the

Panther Palace and some new allegations of prostitution taking place

there. But when he told me about the news tip, I explained to him it was

nothing new and there was no story to be told.

You see, the existence of the Panther Palace was first reported by former

Pilot reporter Tina Borgatta five years ago this month.

Borgatta, who later became the paper’s assistant managing editor, also

followed a tip that residents then were concerned that the home owned by

the late “Wild” Bill Goodwin was nothing more than a den of iniquity.

Borgatta investigated, interviewed Goodwin and visited the house,

breaking the Panther Palace story in April of 1995. And Costa Mesa police

then, just like today, could not find evidence of prostitution or any

other wrongdoing.

Predictably, however, the news of Goodwin, who was 71 at the time, but

has since passed away, and his mini Playboy mansion spread to major

newspapers, tabloids and television shows. And residents reacted with an

equal amount of disgust over the Panther Palace even then.

Yet, like most flash-in-the-pan news stories, the Panther Palace soon

became old news and we went back to ignoring it, for some five years.

And we would have continued to ignore it if it weren’t for a coincidental

twist.

Not long after our police reporter learned about the news tip, we also

learned the very same Panther Palace was the subject of an independent

film that had been banned by the Newport Beach Film Festival.

Suddenly, we had what we call in this business, “a news hook.”

What followed was our latest story on this dubious Costa Mesa institution

that has become so popular today that the man who took over for Goodwin

is considering a reservation policy for visitors.

So, if the stories of the Panther Palace make you uneasy, I understand.

Even agree. But the Daily Pilot was just doing its job.

Newspapers, at least mainstream ones, are neutral observers of daily

life. And newspaper editors and reporters certainly aren’t in the

business of promotion as we’ve been accused. Our business is to report

the news, the good, the bad and the ugly. And sometimes, the news isn’t

what we want to hear.

Regardless, as members of the press, we have a responsibility to let our

readers know what’s happening in their neighborhoods. We would be

derelict not to. Keep in mind, we didn’t create the Panther Palace, we

just shed light on it.

If the Panther Palace is to go out of business, or at the very least

relocate, it’s up to the residents of Costa Mesa to step up and demand

that happens.

I wish them luck.

* TONY DODERO is the editor of the Daily Pilot. He can be reached at

(949) 574-4258 or via e-mail at tony.dodero@latimes.com .