When Sex Can Be a Showstopper

A former Chamber of Commerce official phoned City Councilwoman Laura Chick’s office and related, in shocked tones, how a porn shop had opened near a church in Canoga Park. It was, the caller pointed out, a violation of zoning laws, not to mention a violation of good taste. After all, the Topanga Boulevard shop’s sign not only advertised “Adult Movies,” “Adult Books” and a “Live Peep Show,” but it was topped by a sign that said, “Jesus Saves.”

Talk about rubbing it in (perhaps not the most appropriate phrase to use here).

Police were notified and went to the scene where they discovered it was just the facade for a movie that was being filmed.

“And,” an aide to Chick added, “not a porno movie.”

NO PLACE FOR A PICKPOCKET: The cops will be doing the speeding Saturday night in the L.A. Invitational indoor track meet.

Al Franken, chairman of the Sports Arena event, has added a 50-meter race featuring officers from the LAPD, Sheriff’s Department, California Highway Patrol and state Department of Justice. The favorite will probably be LAPD Officer Ed Williams, who ran 100 meters in 10.52 seconds at the Police Olympics two years ago.

No one will be making any doughnut jokes about these cops.

NOT QUITE OLYMPIC EVENTS: In the four decades that Franken has been holding track events, he has been nothing if not imaginative at concocting matchups. Some of his other memorable promotions:

* A Ladies Shopping Carts race of 50 yards, with the winner getting to fill her basket at a market that was one of the event sponsors. “Boy, was that crass commercialism,” Franken said with a laugh.

* A 50-yard race of PSA stewardesses who were decked out in their short, sexy outfits (this was back in the 1960s, obviously). “We could never do something like that now,” Franken said with another laugh.

* A race between long-distance Olympian Kip Keino and a cable car in San Francisco. Keino lost. “The cable car is just too tough on the hills,” Franken noted.

* And, finally, a high-jump duel between track star Dwight Stones and a Frisbee-catching dog. The hound, renowned for achieving great heights while snatching a flying disc out of the air, disappointed everyone by running under the high-jump bar in Franken’s meet. “Disqualified,” Franken said.

GET-HAIR SCHEMES: There just seems to be no end to all the supposed baldness cures that are hitting the market, as Don Lehti of L.A. found out (see photo).

AS EVERYONE IS REMINDED ON APRIL 15: Bob Heckler of San Pedro wondered when the truth would finally come--and there it was, in black and white, in a local phone directory--”Calif State of Taxes” (see accompanying). “Talk about a governmental identity crisis,” heckled Heckler.

ARLEN, TEX., MEET EL LAY, CALIF.: Fox’s “King of the Hill” animated TV series has a new billboard series in which Hank Hill, the Everyman hero of the series, and his family come to L.A.

One billboard shows Hill staring at an Angelyne billboard and saying, “Oh, my God!” Another has Hank saying, “El Nino? Why don’t you just call it rain?” And, in the third billboard, Hill and his family gather in front of the L.A. Criminal Courthouse, where Hank intones: “So this is where all the movie stars hang out.”

SURE, HE WAS A SNAKE BUT . . . Under the heading “Animal Services” in a weekly newspaper, Kimberly Smith of Northridge came upon an eel-skin briefcase that was for sale (see accompanying). Asked Smith: “What kind of services could they offer that poor eel?”

Funeral services, perhaps.

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In the San Pedro newspaper Random Lengths, writer Art Vinsel recalled the time that Mike Malony, a Hollywood publicist, and actor John Barrymore “tumbled to the bottom of a pit that held a drugged and declawed lion on a jungle movie set, after a long, liquid lunch.” Barrymore cried, “Get me out first! Get me out first!” The Shakespearean actor added: “I’m the star! Writers are a dime a dozen. . . .”

Steve Harvey can be reached by phone at (213) 237-7083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com and by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053.