GILROY
– A sex club similar to the Adult Forum Social Club that sparked
months of controversy when it operated in garlic town has opened in
Santa Clara County at the border of Morgan Hill, rekindling South
Valley’s tryst with partner-swapping weekend entertainment and
neighborhood efforts to oust it.
GILROY – A sex club similar to the Adult Forum Social Club that sparked months of controversy when it operated in garlic town has opened in Santa Clara County at the border of Morgan Hill, rekindling South Valley’s tryst with partner-swapping weekend entertainment and neighborhood efforts to oust it.
The Arena swingers club opened for business the weekend of June 6 to 7 in a home at 16220 Hill Road, County Zoning Investigator Jim Lanz confirmed Wednesday.
The 4,000-square-foot residence sits on the extreme border of Morgan Hill just outside city limits in an area zoned only for residential and agricultural uses. It is within walking distance to million-dollar hillside homes, Jackson Elementary School and a neighborhood park.
Lanz wrote a letter to the property owners Hong and Emily Chen Wednesday notifying them that their tenants were using the property illegally. The county is giving the Chens 30 days to make their tenants cease business operations.
If the owners do not cooperate, the county can put a notice of violation (similar to a lien) on the home. The county can also fine the Chens $100 a day plus penalty fees and assessments amounting to roughly $180 per day or more.
Lanz would not say who was renting the Chen property and operating The Arena club and the Chens repeatedly hung up when telephone contact was made by a Dispatch reporter. Based on responses published in the club’s online guest book, operations have taken place in the South Bay area since at least February 2001.
Deena Luce, owner and operator of the Adult Forum Social Club, is denying any connection to the new club.
“I am not connected to this in any way,” Luce said Thursday morning.
Luce’s sex parties are now being held in San Jose hotels, according to the club’s Web site and answering machine greetings. Like Luce’s sex club, which used to operate in unincorporated Gilroy on Dryden Avenue and the city of Gilroy on South Monterey Road, couples and singles pay a fee to party together.
At the parties, which are held on Friday and Saturday nights, singles and couples observe and participate in the sexual acts of other couples.
Hill Road residents became suspicious that a sex club had moved in when they saw velvet couches delivered, window coverings installed and landscaping lights placed alongside the driveway.
“There’s a fence that goes along the backyard that’s new,” neighbor Karen Turnlund said. “That’s where all the cars park on the weekend.”
Turnlund and other neighbors don’t want these weekend visitors. They are planning to meet formally in the next few days hoping to build a coalition against The Arena. Already neighbors have contacted the Sheriff’s Department, county zoning and even the assistant district attorney for Santa Clara County.
“This is a very strong neighborhood, a neighborhood that works very well as a community to address issues like this,” neighbor David Lewis said. “It won’t be a neighborhood that writes three letters and does nothing else. A lot of folks will take an interest.”
The Chen name is already mud with Morgan Hill and county residents. Roughly three years ago, the Chens relocated the existing house to the 16220 Hill Road address. It was delivered in sections and placed on a part of the 10-acre parcel it was not permitted for, Lanz and neighbors said.
The action unglued neighbors who contacted County Supervisor Don Gage asking for him to advocate for them.
“Imagine looking at your beautiful field and waking up one day and seeing this house in pieces behind you,” Turnlund said.
Lanz said the Chens have had run-ins with the county for violating other permits. To date, those violations have been rectified, Lanz said.
As for the zoning violations related to operating a sex club, the county will now begin a process it wrapped up in April. Lanz fined Ilyas Absar, the owner of the adobe-style home at 2670 Dryden Ave. where the Adult Forum Social Club operated.
Ultimately, Lanz asked the Santa Clara County Court in San Martin to drop charges of having a club not legally zoned for the property.
“I just dismissed it. I figured he had been through enough,” Lanz said then, adding that he felt Absar really didn’t know what he was getting into when he offered a three-year lease to Luce.
