Hard sell: “The Town That Banned Sex,”...

Hard sell: “The Town That Banned Sex,” screamed the title of an expose on the city of Lancaster by TV’s “Hard Copy.”

“From strip joints and topless bars to movies and Madonna merchandising,” the tabloid’s narrator intoned, “this town just couldn’t take it anymore.” So it began a campaign to “kick the sex merchants out of town.”

The segment, which dealt with an anti-porno ordinance pushed by religious elements of the city, was augmented with racy footage of women dancing in G-strings and exterior shots of adult movie theaters.

Only later did “Hard Copy” casually reveal that there are no adult movie theaters or bars with women in G-strings in Lancaster. There’s a total of one shop that sells “sexy products” in the city of almost 100,000 residents.

The racy footage was shot elsewhere.

“We knew the woman dancing in G-strings was not dancing in Lancaster,” a spokesman for “Hard Copy” says.

“That was the whole premise of the piece.”

Guess they couldn’t title it: “The Town That’s Goody Two-Shoes!”

How bad is the recession?

Despite what our accompanying photo indicates, L.A. County is not fleeing the state. One government building in the City of Commerce is, however, shutting down. You’d think the county would take a bit more pride in advertising this fact, but . . . that’s our county for you.

Dueling studies: We mentioned that the Century City Assn. of L.A. contends that a proposal to install “showers/lockers for bicycle riders in new developments of 100,000 square feet or more” would work out to $63.60 per bicycle trip.

But transportation planner Ryan Snyder calculates that if just eight employees used such facilities in a building over a 30-year period, the cost would work out to about 50 cents per bicycle trip.

Snyder, by the way, is backing a projected bicycle freeway in West L.A. that would run for 2 1/2 miles, terminating at UCLA.

Wake up, Caltech: This could be the breakthrough in earthquake forecasting that scientists have been searching for.

A group called Wake Up L.A. invites the public to Elysian Park on Sunday afternoon for “A Day of Listening to the Earth,” featuring “spiritual, psychological and religious speakers.” A candlelight ceremony will be held to “create a grid of light, connecting each person with each other and with the Earth” to achieve “the Earth’s healing.”

Wake Up L.A. spokeswoman Susan Drew speculated “that earthquakes begin in people and they are caused by the energy of unresolved issues that people have not dealt with.”

Incidentally, though this is Halloween weekend, we urge people not to wear their costumes to the Earth-listening event. We wouldn’t want the Earth to jump now would we?

MiscelLAny:

UCLA, UC Irvine and the University of San Diego were the only California universities singled out for excellent residence hall food in the “Ultimate College Shopper’s Guide.”