City pays $0 in damages

By Donna Beth Weilenman
Staff Reporter

A suit filed two years ago against Benicia by a St. Helena businessman who wanted to open an adult entertainment club called Tail Feathers in the Benicia Industrial Park has been settled out of court, the man confirmed Wednesday.

Neither Robert Amatrone, who filed the suit in 2008, nor the city will collect legal fees — although since Amatrone represented himself, his were only $350, compared to $25,000 Benicia paid a contract attorney to rewrite its ordinance governing adult entertainment. According to the settlement, the city won’t have to pay damages.

Amatrone, whose businesses include construction, wineries and a limousine service in Concord, agreed to drop his civil rights suit several weeks ago after city officials claimed immunity. “They wouldn’t have to testify, like a diplomat,” he told The Herald. “It couldn’t move forward.”

In 2007, Amatrone had asked a real estate agent to research city laws governing adult entertainment and find a location for what he called “an upscale gentlemen’s club.”

He said Wednesday city staff didn’t respond to his agent’s inquiries for 10 days. “I was out of town, and couldn’t do anything about it,” he said. Meanwhile, he said, the city moved to prevent him from opening the club. He never got as far as applying for the permit.

At that time, City Attorney Heather McLaughlin told officials Benicia couldn’t ban a strip club outright without making the city vulnerable to First Amendment litigation.

The city then hired Deborah Fox, a contract attorney specializing in First Amendment and land use issues, to tighten its regulations governing adult entertainment. She agreed with McLaughlin’s assessment, saying, “Nude dancing is on the outer perimeter of First Amendment-protected activity.”

While Fox was crafting the stronger ordinance she later would call “state-of-the-art,” the city also imposed a temporary moratorium in May 2007 on adult businesses.
In earlier interviews, Amatrone said when he first became interested in opening his club, the business would have been legal. The Industrial Park would have been ideal, he said, because of its access to Interstate 680, a major corridor for commuters.

He then called the city’s handling of the matter “a First Amendment rights violation.” He countered with the lawsuit, originally filed in Solano County Superior Court and later sent to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California.

Amatrone asserted that his civil rights were violated when the city imposed the moratorium before he had time to apply for a permit. In the suit, he asked for monetary damages for the delay of opening the club, for loss of revenue and profit, and from civil rights and civil liberties violations “which caused personal and financial harm and discrimination.”

Defending his plans to open an adult entertainment club that wouldn’t serve alcohol, Amatrone said in his suit that the city had two businesses that catered to adults. One open at that time — Pastime — operated a card room; the other he described as selling alcohol and pornographic books.

He asked that the Superior Court bar Benicia from passing the new ordinance, a request that was denied. The ordinance was adopted in January 2009, and the moratorium was lifted at the same time.

Amatrone also had questioned the actions of the real estate firm for which his agent had worked. In 2007, he asked Rebecca Clutts to research Benicia’s zoning laws governing strip clubs. In the draft court filings, Clutts said that after she started her research, her employer, Steve Ridge, told her to quit working with Amatrone. She said she resigned, calling the order discriminatory against her client.

Prior to the filing of Amatrone’s suit, Ridge told the Council he would not represent a client who wanted to open such a business.

Suggesting that Ridge had bowed to pressure from city officials, Amatrone said in an earlier interview, “He pulled his agent that was acting as a buffer.”

He said Wednesday he was happy Clutts supported him, but was saddened that she felt compelled to quit her job. “It put her in a bad position,” he said.

As the case became public, some Benicians expressed surprise that the city couldn’t ban strip clubs outright. While some residents had no objection to regulated clubs, others said they would picket such places if they were allowed, and urged officials to take a stand against adult entertainment businesses.

Regarding a gentlemen’s club, Amatrone said, “I could operate under the terms and conditions (of the ordinance), but that wouldn’t be beneficial.” He said others could try to file suits he believes could have portions of the current ordinance overturned. “It’s got a lot of flaws.”

Amatrone said he hasn’t ruled out opening some kind of business in Benicia; he said he’s contemplated a bikini bar in which alcohol is served by women in bathing suits.