OB's Strand stops X-rated fare

The city council, city attorney, state courts, and a group of dedicated residents keep trying to make it impossible for Vince Miranda to show X-rated films at his Strand theater in Ocean Beach, but Miranda continues, undeterred. Miranda bought the Newport Avenue movie house in 1982 and quickly changed its failing, repertory/art film line up to the same adult-movie fare offered at his four local Pussycat Theaters. Then came community protest in the form of picket lines and petitions, and a city attorney’s lawsuit alleging that the Strand was in violation of a city ordinance prohibiting the showing of X-rated movies within 1000 feet of a residential zone.

Strand attorneys have tied up prosecution of that complaint by arguing that the city ordinance is unconstitutional. Last month a state appeals court rejected that argument, yet the strand once again returned to X-rated features. That switch brought out the pickets, who converged on the sidewalk outside the Strand for three hours on Saturday, October 29. The protest was an apparent success, according to picket organizer Rich Grosch, who says that “not one person went in (the theater) while we were there.”

The Strand’s operators also appeared to have violated the city’s antiporn ordinance for a second time. Since the theater was first cited in 1982, the ordinance has been toughened. It previously allowed a movie house to show adult films during fifty percent of its open hours; a theater showing X-rateds for fourteen out of thirty days was therefore technically not in violation. The new wording, however, now makes it illegal to show X-rateds more than seven days out of any fifty-six-day period.

Still, the Strand’s decision to switch back to “R” and “PG” movies last Friday, November 4, may have been a tactical move to demoralize the picketers, who planned a meeting this week and were organizing for a second round of protest. “They’re extremely sophisticated,” organizer Grosch says of the Strand management. “They know how to wear down a community by trying to dissipate our energy.” Grosch thinks that the Strand’s showing The Wild Bunch, Reefer Madness, and two Woody Allen films is just a decoy; the X-rateds will be back soon, Grosch says, and he promises the picket lines will also return.

Spokesmen at Walnut Properties, the Strand’s Los Angeles-based parent company, won’t discuss the scheduling flip-flops at the Strand, but there are indications that the firm isn’t happy with the theater’s financial performance, regardless of what films play there. The Strand is now on the market, with both offers to purchase ($495,000) or lease ($3500 monthly) being considered.