Burbank OKs $3.8-Million Settlement in ’79 Dispute With Rock Concert Promoter

The Burbank City Council Tuesday approved a $3.8-million settlement with a concert promoter who won a $4.6-million judgment in a lawsuit accusing the city of illegally preventing him from staging rock concerts at the city-owned Starlight Bowl.

Although the lawsuit was one of the most controversial in the city’s history, the council unanimously approved the settlement without comment.

Under terms of the settlement, Burbank agreed to drop its appeal of the larger award, ending an expensive, seven-year legal battle revolving around efforts by previous Burbank city administrations to bar rock concerts from the Starlight Bowl, now called the Starlight Amphitheatre.

Burbank administrators banned concerts by performers such as Jackson Browne, Todd Rundgren, Patti Smith and Al Stewart, contending that the shows would attract drug users, homosexuals and anti-nuclear demonstrators.

A Los Angeles Superior Court jury in July, 1985, ordered the city to pay $4.6 million, plus costs and interest, for breach of its contract with the Cinevision Corp. Cinevision signed an exclusive contract in 1975 to operate the amphitheater.

Action Found to Be Illegal

The jury also concluded that the city illegally blocked the promoter’s attempt to renew the contract for another five years in 1979.

Cinevision’s owner, Jack Berwick, filed suit against the city in 1979, seeking more than $9 million, representing profits that he said were lost when the city prevented him from staging the concerts and refused to extend the contract.

When the judgment was first awarded, Berwick said he felt sorry for current Burbank city officials because they were not in power when he filed his suit in 1979.

“I’m sorry they are now bearing the brunt of a problem which other people made for them, but a contract is a contract,� Berwick said. “The contract is very clearly stated, and they broke it.�

Berwick declined to comment Tuesday when informed of the city’s decision, but Phillip Recht, an attorney for Cinevision, said he was “pleased with the settlement.

“I think it was fair,� he said. “In terms of liability, it was a clear-cut case of breach of contract and violation of First Amendment rights.�

Recht said he and other Cinevision representatives will meet with city officials today to make payment arrangements.

The council also agreed to pay $100,000 to the law firm of Hufstedler, Miller, Carlson & Beardsley to challenge a decision by the city’s insurance carriers not to pay the cost of the judgment. Burbank had already paid the firm $100,000 in defense fees.