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Board to Seek Closure of Club Chateau

North Hollywood: County supervisors vote to look for ways to revoke a zoning permit for the bondage parlor.

December 11, 1991|AMY PYLE, TIMES STAFF WRITER

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted Tuesday to seek legal avenues for closing a bondage-and-discipline club in North Hollywood and for barring similar sadomasochist establishments in unincorporated areas of the county.

The board, acting on a recommendation by the county Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, agreed to form a special committee to look for ways to revoke a zoning permit for Club Chateau, approved by a Los Angeles city zoning administrator last August.


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"We should take a strong stand on this type of activity in Los Angeles County and close this place down," Supervisor Kenneth Hahn said.

Supervisor Gloria Molina also asked that businesses in East Los Angeles advertised as "facial and pain control centers" be included in the committee's investigation because, she said, "they are nothing more than fronts for prostitution rings."

It was unclear, however, what legal options would be available to the county to close Club Chateau. The Los Angeles County counsel last week advised the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, a 15-member advisory panel appointed by supervisors, that the county does not have the power to overturn zoning decisions made by the city.

In interviews, commission members said they believe the Club Chateau might be successfully attacked as a public nuisance, under civil law, by arguing that bondage itself is illegal.

"You have community standards, after all, and if people object, that can take care of it," said Dolores I. Nason, commission president.

The new committee is to include representatives of the county district attorney, the city attorney's office, the Sheriff's Department, the county Department of Regional Planning and the county Human Relations Commission.

The Club Chateau, which boasts a membership of about 4,000, moved to a former bakery in a largely industrial area of North Hollywood in March after city officials determined that its former Hollywood site was located within 500 feet of a residence, in violation of the city's adult entertainment ordinance.

A club spokeswoman known as Shyloh, who used to be one of the women paid by members to either give or receive punishments such as whippings, said she was "a little baffled" by the county's attack. She said club owner James Hillier intentionally chose an industrial area to meet city regulations and had agreed to a long list of conditions aimed at ensuring that what goes on inside the club cannot be heard outside.

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