Club’s Neon Nude Stirs Neighborhood Protest

The buxom blond on the marquee virtually grabs customers off the street with her bare-it-all pose. But the neon diva pictured outside the Hollywood Cabaret is stirring up more than eager customers these days.

The naked lady has generated vociferous complaints among those who live and work around the strip club, a fixture along the Walk of Fame, just feet from the historic corner of Hollywood and Vine.

Neighborhood activists have flooded police with calls in recent days and a neighborhood cable TV show devoted an entire episode this week to the subject, titling the segment “Hollywood Laid Bare.”

“It’s an eyeful of sleaze,” said Chris Shabel, chairwoman of the Vine Street Area Improvement Assn. and host of the cable show. “It’s just another thing adding to the filth of Hollywood.”

Police say the rendering on the marquee doesn’t appear to violate any Los Angeles laws, but they are awaiting an official opinion from the Department of Building and Safety. Meanwhile, a Hollywood vice officer has informed the club about the complaints and asked its operators to address the problem.

The club has already altered a display in its front window in response to similar complaints lodged a few weeks ago. Workers have taped pieces of lime-green paper over a naked woman pictured dancing in front of two men.

Club operators said they are striving to address community concerns, and workers late Wednesday were covering the offending parts of the naked woman pictured on the marquee. “We want to be good neighbors,” said Albert Sanchez, an attorney for the club. “It certainly wasn’t our intention to cause a great ruckus. We are listening to the community and trying to make the sign less offensive.”

The club added a nude to each side of its marquee and another to its front window display during a recent remodeling. Sanchez said the club commissioned the depictions of the naked women, which he described as “works of neon art.”

The club--nearly two decades old and formerly known as the Cave--celebrated a grand opening as the Hollywood Cabaret at the beginning of May.

The club is hardly the only establishment of its kind in Hollywood, home to about a dozen strip joints and adult book stores.

Hollywood Cabaret operators say they are being singled out from the other businesses, noting that no action has been taken against the owner of a tattoo parlor two doors down that features a life-size photograph of a topless woman in its front window.

“It’s adult entertainment,” one Hollywood Cabaret manager, who asked not to be identified, said of the risque fare. “What else do you expect? It’s like a hamburger place. They have hamburgers on [their marquees].”

Police say they periodically receive complaints about other adult businesses in Hollywood but that the signs at the Hollywood Cabaret have generated an unusually large volume of calls in recent weeks.

Alfred Beardsley, operations manager of the Vine movie theater, a few doors down from the Hollywood Cabaret, is among those who criticize the use of a naked woman on the marquee. He said such displays hurt business for others on the boulevard, including the Vine, which shows mainstream films.