Judge Alexander McMahon Archives

The Judge Who Fought the Law . . . and Won

The Colorful Trial of Judge Rollie Webb

Judge Rollie Webb in 1954, striking a Japanese temple bell in his chambers (photo Sonoma County Library)

Early in the evening of May 6, 1953, Judge Rollie Webb entered The Bend cocktail lounge, for what he claimed was business with Max Oncina, the proprietor. Oncina served Webb “more than one but less than four” highballs, before turning the bar over to Albert Curry at 6 p.m., for the evening shift.

Curry and Webb had history—some months earlier, Curry refused Webb service because he was intoxicated.

While Curry poured Webb two more highballs of vodka and 7-Up, Webb struck up a conversation with a young private from Two Rock Ranch Army base named Gerald Jones. After learning Jones shared a common Welsh ancestry, Webb insisted they sing a “Welsh” song together. Standing up, he launched into a rendition of “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.”

The Bend in the Gross Building on Main Street, 1952 (photo Sonoma County Library)

When Curry asked him to keep it down, Webb turned to Jones and suggested they “clean up the bar” in proper Welsh fashion. Instead, Jones bolted for the door.

Webb continued stumbling about the bar, singing Irish ballads. He responded to Curry’s repeated requests to sit down with profanity, demanding that he “buy him a drink.” Finally, Curry called the police to complain that the judge was drunk and raising Cain. After the call, Webb left The Bend and crossed the street to the 101 Club.

When patrolman George Wagner entered the 101, Webb ordered him to remove his hat in his presence. “I am the law in Petaluma,” he told Wagner, “and I can do what I want.”

The 101 Club on Main Street to the right of Western Auto, across from the town clock, 1956 (photo Sonoma County Library)

Placing Webb under arrest, Wagner helped Webb into his patrol car and drove him to the police station two blocks away in City Hall on Fourth Street. At the station he was booked for being drunk in a public place, and released on his own recognizance. His physician drove down to give him a ride home to his house on Galland Street.

The county district attorney refused to prosecute the case, as did Petaluma’s city attorney, Karl Brooks, who cited an ordinance that a person could not be arrested for being drunk inside a bar.

That surprised Police Chief Melvin “Noonie” Del Maestro, who took Brooks’ interpretation of the ordinance to mean his department had arrested hundreds of people without authority since that particular ordinance went into effect in 1942.

Left-to-right: Officer George Wagner, who arrested Webb, Police Chief Noonie Del Maestro, and Officer Dale Moore, 1952 (photo Sonoma County Library)

Once news of the dropped charges went viral in newspapers across the country—“Petaluma Judge Freed in Drunk Case,” casting a pall of corruption over the town, Brooks reversed himself, instructing Del Maestro to charge Webb with being intoxicated on a city street while crossing from The Bend to the 101 Club.

Announcing his plea of not guilty, and demanding a jury trial, Webb had just one thing to say about the circus-like atmosphere of the case: “I’d like to have the TV rights to this.”²

Born in Oakland in 1911, Rolland Clyde Webb was two months old when his parents moved to Petaluma. After graduating from Petaluma High School in 1928, he married Le Tier Beck and took a job as a mortician in town with the John C. Mount Funeral Parlor, while also serving as a deputy county coroner.

In 1935, Webb was stricken with tuberculosis, spending most of the next two years undergoing surgeries at Stanford Hospital and recuperating at a sanitarium in St. Helena. Upon his recovery, he returned to Petaluma with new-found determination, throwing his hat in the ring as a candidate for justice of the peace, a position that didn’t require a law degree.

Only 28 years old, he cited his work as a mortician as good experience in working with the public. Surprisingly, he won.³

Rollie Webb and Melvin “Dutch”Flor at Petaluma High School, 1928; Dutch Flor served as Santa Rosa’s chief of police, 1940-1974 (photo courtesy of Torliatt Family Collection)

“Rollie,” as he was widely known, quickly became a colorful fixture among Petaluma’s 8,000 residents. Diminutive in stature, he was a popular track star and debater in high school, and retained a competitive and argumentative spirit, both on and off the bench. Active in various fraternal orders and non-profit organizations, he took joy in writing poetry and singing light opera and Irish ballads.

After being reelected to two more terms as justice of the peace, he set his sights on higher office, making an unsuccessful run in 1948 for Congress, and a second unsuccessful run in 1950 for county supervisor.⁴

Judge Rollie Webb, meting out a 3,000-word essay on driving safety in lieu of a traffic fine, 1949 (photo courtesy of the *Santa Rosa Press Democrat*)

Shortly thereafter, a change in state law required that Petaluma’s two lower courts—the justice of the peace and the city police court, which handled police arrests—be merged into one so-called justice court.

The new court remained limited to minor duties—criminal misdemeanors, small dollar civil cases, administering oaths, and performing marriage ceremonies—but with a higher jurisdiction in terms of the fines and jail time it was able to impose. As had been the case for justices of the peace like Webb, there were no special qualifications for being a judge.⁵

In November 1952, Webb won election to the new justice court, beating out Petaluma’s former city police court judge. His election marked the beginning of a long-running feud with Del Maestro.

Like Webb, Del Maestro grew up in Petaluma. After graduating from Petaluma High in 1924, he married his high school sweetheart, went away to barber school, and then opened up his own barbershop in town.

The onset of the Depression hurt his business, leading him to join the police force in 1933. He was recruited largely because of his skills as a former Golden Gloves boxing champion. With Prohibition ending, a new era of barroom brawls was born. Known for being able to hold his own in a fight, Del Maestro’s talents came in handy during the 1940s as well, when soldiers stationed at nearby Two Rock Ranch and Hamilton Field made Petaluma their favorite drinking spot.

Del Maestro was also known for operating by a code of street justice. One telling example occurred in the mid-1940s when he went to question a transient in the railroad yard. After the man took off running, Del Maestro, an excellent marksman who trained at the FBI Academy, drew his revolver and felled him with a flesh wound to his right leg. Fastening a bandana around the bleeding wound, he took the man home to his wife Gladys for treatment.⁶

Police Chief Noonie Del Maestro training in 1950 at the FBI National Academy in Virginia, where he placed first in marksmanship (photo courtesy of the *Santa Rosa Press Democrat*)

After 17 years on the force, Del Maestro was appointed chief of police in 1950, overseeing an eight-man department.⁷

While Webb shared Del Maestro’s disposition for not operating strictly by the book—he liked to point out that if the book worked in every case, there wouldn’t be a need for judges—he tended to lean in the opposite direction of De Maestro, tempering justice with mercy, so much mercy in some cases that officers of the law often left his court in despair.

In one of his classic cases involving a young man convicted of assault, Webb asked Del Maestro if he would agree to delaying the start of the man’s jail sentence, so as to allow him to continue operating his family business in Tomales. Del Maestro said no. “Every consideration is for the defendant when we get to court,” he added. “No thought is given to the poor people he abused. He should know that if he breaks the law, he will have to go to jail.”

As a compromise, Webb sentenced the man to 10 two-day weekends in jail.

It was no secret Webb was a drinker. He often found before him on the bench suspects he had shared drinks with the night before at a bar in town. “You only had three beers?” the common joke about Webb went. “I bought you four myself!”

Webb’s new role as judge of the justice court presiding over police arrests, went into effect in January 1953. Five months later Webb was arrested at the 101 Club.

City Hall and police headquarters at Fourth and A streets, early 1950s (photo Sonoma County Library)

His jury trial was held in the city council chambers at City Hall. The case drew an estimated 100 spectators, many of whom stood in the hall throughout the trial. The proceedings were retried in the evenings at every bar in town.

For legal counsel, Webb hired LeRoy Lounibos, Sr., one of Petaluma’s most prominent attorneys. Unleashing an aggressive, theatrical defense, Lounibos raised the tension in the courtroom, overwhelming City Attorney Brooks, a relatively inexperienced prosecutor.

Lounibos zeroed in on the weakness in the city’s case, which was finding a witness who had actually seen Webb cross Main Street in an inebriated state. He called to the stand the 101 Club’s owner and bartender, Joe Monteno, who testified that he watched Webb walk into his bar angry but completely sober.

Willie Brown, a legless man who operated a shoeshine stand adjacent to the 101 Club, testified Webb walked across the street from The Bend “very correctly.” Webb’s physician said he examined him that night after driving him home, and found him to be “perfectly sober.”

Defense attorney LeRoy Lounibos, Sr. and Judge Rollie Webb, on recess during first day of trial (photo courtesy of *Petaluma Argus-Courier*)

In his caustic cross-examination of the prosecution’s witness Private Jones, who testified watching a drunk Webb causing trouble in The Bend, Lounibos got him to admit that he was only 19 and drinking in the bar. Lounibos asked the judge to strike Jones’ testimony and have him taken into custody for violating the state liquor control law.

Private Jones passed out in the hallway after leaving the courtroom, and had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance.

Testifying on his own behalf, Webb attributed his boisterous actions that evening to a “big slug” of the medicine he took just before going into The Bend. His doctor explained that he had prescribed dexadrine for him to use as a stimulant when he was feeling emotionally upset, mentally fatigued, or physically exhausted, all three of which Webb said he was experiencing that evening.⁸

The trial lasted two days. The jury of 11 men and one woman took only eight minutes to reach a verdict of not guilty. Acquitted, Webb left the courtroom announcing he had “malice toward none.”⁹ Four days later, he filed a claim against the city and several individuals for $100,000 in damages for false arrest, and inflicting “severe and unusual mental anguish, pain, and humiliation.”

Among those named in the claim were Del Maestro and Wagner. “It looks like I’m Petaluma’s political pawn,” Webb told the press. “And a small group of people are our to get me.”¹⁰

Two weeks later, Brooks found the claim to be without merit. The city council agreed. Webb had a year in which to respond with a lawsuit against the city.¹¹ He did not. The claim had achieved its purpose of smearing Del Maestro and the police department.

In late January 1954, Webb failed to show up in court one morning. It turned out the county sheriff had issued a temporary holding charge of inebriation against him, placing him in the Sonoma County Hospital to sober up.¹² In the court of Petaluma it didn’t matter. Webb was reelected to two more six-year terms as justice of the judicial court.

Police Chief De; Maestro examining seized evidence, mid-1960s (photo Sonoma County Library)

The feud between Webb and Del Maestro continued unabated until the late 1960s, as both law enforcement and the courts nationwide found themselves under increasing scrutiny due in large part to Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam protests.

“The negative, resentful attitude many people have toward the police,” officer George Wagner later observed, “is due to an unfortunate attitude that has become too prevalent in out society.”

He noted that when he walked the beat alone in the early 1950s, he could always count on assistance from citizens if he needed it. “Now it’s a whole new ball game. The majority of people seldom cooperate when a crime is committed. As the city grew larger and more people moved here, there seemed to be less compassion.”¹³

His boss, Del Maestro, retired from the force in 1968, replaced by a Petaluma Police Sergeant Larry Higgins, a native of Idaho.

That same year, a new state law converted Petaluma’s justice court to a municipal court, one that now required a sitting judge with a law degree. Alexander J. McMahon, a judge in Sonoma and a native of San Francisco, was appointed the new district judge for south Sonoma County. Forced to resign from the bench, Webb was appointed a municipal clerk in McMahon’s new court.¹⁴

So ended Petaluma’s era of homegrown justice.

Clerk Rollie Webb, seated at right, and Judge Alexander McMahon seat behind the bench in the new Southern Sonoma County Municipal Court on its first day in session, January 22, 1968 (photo courtesy of the *Santa Rosa Press Democrat*)

*****

Footnotes

“Webb is Arrested on Drunk Charge,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, May 7, 1953; “Judge Webb’s Case May Go To Jury Today,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, July 9, 1953; “Verdict on Webb is ‘Not Guilty,’” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, July 10, 1953; “Doctor Says Webb Was Sober May 6th,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, July 9, 1953.
“Petaluma’s Only Judge Charged as Drunk, City Without Court,” Napa Register, May 7, 1953; “Petaluma Judge Freed in Drunk Case,” Sacramento Bee, May 14, 1953; “City Attorney Opinion Holds Up Webb Case,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, May 14, 1953.
“Rolly Webb in Justice Race,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, May 3, 1938; “Rolland Webb’s Election Seems Sure,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, September 1, 1938.
“Death Takes Rolland Webb,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, April 10, 1972.
Oral History Interview with Judge Monty Hellam, 1970, Mayo Hayes O’Donnell Library, Monterey, California. https://www.mayohayeslibrary.org/transcription-of-an-oral-history-of-the-monterey-police-court.html
“No One’s Afraid of Cops Anymore,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, September 26, 1993.
“Del Maestro, ex-Police Chief, Dies,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, September 21, 1993; “George Wagner,” Petaluma Argus Courier, April 23, 1977.
“Doctor Says Webb Was Sober May 6th,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, July 9, 1953.
“No Malice, Webb Admits,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, July 10, 1953; “Verdict on Webb is ‘Not Guilty,’” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, July 10, 1953.
“Long Range City, Court Fight Seen,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, July 15, 1953.
“Webb’s Big Claim is Denied by the City,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 4, 1953.
“Judge Webb Held for Inebriacy,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, January 25, 1954; “Judge Webb Out of Hospital,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, January 27, 1954.
Chris Samson, “George Wagner,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 23, 1977.
“Del Maestro, ex-Police Chief, Dies,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, September 21, 1993; “Rolland Webb Dies at Age 63,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, April 10, 1972; “Petaluma Police Chief Resigning,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, November 7, 1967; “Gov. Reagan Signs Bill on New Municipal Court,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 26, 1967; Judge McMahon, 53, Dies in His Sleep Wednesday,” Petaluma Argus Courier, September 23, 1976.

Petaluma’s Days as a Porn Capital

The jury in *Petaluma’s* Deep Throat obscenity trial, entering the State Theater to view the film, September 17, 1973 (photo courtesy of the *Petaluma Argus-Courier*)

Filmmakers often use the flashback to render a coming-of-age story, dipping into the whirlpool of memories that mark any rite of passage. For those who grew up with drive-in movies—first as pajama-clad kids plied with snacks and soda pop in the family station wagon, and then as adolescents making out in the back seat—the re-emergence of outdoor theaters during the current pandemic stirs up its own flashback whirlpools of childhood innocence and teenage initiation. If you came of age in Petaluma during the 1970s and early 1980s, those flashbacks inevitably include the X-rated movies displayed on the big screens at either end of town.

I was nine years old when Petaluma’s first drive-in, the Parkway Auto Movies, opened in the summer of 1964. My mother made up a bed in the back of our Ford station wagon, knowing that not long after the cartoon shorts played, my sister and I would be off to dreamland, leaving her and my father to watch the main feature in peace.

That summer was the last for the family station wagon. In a fit of midlife crisis, my father traded it in for a sporty, two-door Pontiac LeMans coupe. Once I was old enough to get my driver’s license, I drove the LeMans to the Parkway on dates. Couples wooing in the “passion pit” rarely saw more than the first 20 minutes of any movie, which at the Parkway was just as well. Built in the lowlands of Denman Flats north of town, the drive-in was plagued in summer with creeping ground fog and flooded in winter during heavy rainstorms.

Night time photo of the Parkway Auto Movies, Denman Flats , 1980 (photo courtesy of *Petaluma Argus-Courier*)

I started high school in the fall of 1970. My next-door neighbor Kenny, who was a few years older, got a job changing the marquee at the Parkway, and hired me to help. We also changed the marquee at the State Theater downtown (today’s Mystic Theater). Both theaters were owned by Alan Finlay, a small, friendly man, who also owned a theater in Boyes Hot Springs.

Finlay purchased them in 1967 from Dan Tocchini, Jr., a second-generation, small town theater mogul. The next year, Tocchini bought the only other theater in town, the California, changing its name to the Showcase (today’s Phoenix Theater). Over the next two decades, Toccini and Finlay swapped theaters back and forth, dominating the movie business in town.

California Theater (today’s Phoenix) before its conversion to the Showcase in 1968, 201 Washington Street, late 1950s (Sonoma County Library)

A second drive-in, the Midway, also opened alongside the freeway south of town in 1967, offering wired speakers that sat on the car roof instead of hooking onto the driver’s window. That not only saved speakers from being ripped off their poles by customers absent-mindedly driving away, it also provided stereo sound.

Such technological innovations were important, as moviegoers were declining in the ’60s due to the rising popularity of television. Hollywood studios, which had dominated moviemaking for decades, were being replaced by business conglomerates who shifted to financing and distributing independently produced pictures. That opened the door to the “Hollywood Renaissance” of the late 60s and early 70s, allowing young filmmakers to appeal to younger countercultural audiences with movies like Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, and Easy Rider.

Lost in the transition to New Hollywood was the predictability theater owners had come to depend upon from the studios. In their heyday, movie factories pumped out enough new releases to supply a schedule of double features that changed three times a week at theaters. Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday usually screened musicals; Wednesday and Thursday, B-movies (low budget films); and Friday and Saturday, westerns.

But while in 1950, 12.3 per cent of American’s recreational budget was spent on movie tickets, by 1965, it was 3.3. per cent. As audiences diminished, theaters cut back, rotating movies only once a week, usually pairing a new release with a B-movie or a second-run hit from prior years. Even then, many big budget films were flopping at the box office.

There was, however, a glimmer of hope on the horizon. The sexual liberation of the swinging ’60s brought an end to the “Hays Code,” a set of strict moral guidelines imposed upon filmmakers. The code was originally adopted during the Depression after studios, struggling with dwindling audiences during cash-strapped times, resorted to making films touching on sex, violence, and other less-than-wholesome topics. Dropping the code in 1968, the movie industry shifted to alerting audiences about film content, adopting the film-ratings system we know today.

The new ratings proved a boon for movie theaters, providing them with a exclusive niche of R- and X-rated films that network television couldn’t broadcast. It took only a year for an X-rated movie—Midnight Cowboy, the story of a friendship between a male prostitute and an ailing con man—to win an Oscar for Best Picture. Two years later, Midnight Cowboy was re-rated from X to R, without a single frame being altered. The change was due in large part to the Swedish film I Am Curious (Yellow).

Movie poster for I Am Curious Yellow, 1969 (in public domain)

Initially banned in the United States for its explicit nudity and sex, the film depicted a 20-year old female college student experimenting with relationships, political activism, and meditation. After U.S. courts ruled it not obscene in 1969, the film became the highest grossing foreign film of all time, helping to usher in the “Golden Age of Porn.”

I Am Curious (Yellow) came to the State Theater in January, 1970, where it ran for an unprecedented six weeks. Prior to its arrival, blue movies, or stag films, were largely restricted to old, whirling, reel-to-reel projectors set up in the back room of the Moose Lodge or the Elks Club on select evenings. Cheaply produced in grainy black-and-white, the films accorded with the public yet strangely private nature of fraternal orders, a characteristic they shared with drive-ins theaters.

By the time Kenny and I began changing marquees in the fall of 1970, Finlay was screening a double or triple bill of X-rated films one week out of every month at both the Parkway and the State. Our first X-rated marquee was Russ Meyers’ crossover hit, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, at the Parkway. Like most of Finlay’s X-rated films at the time, it was soft porn, meaning that the focus of the films were more on the erotic setup, with only simulated sex.

Parkway Theater Ad (Petlauma Argus Courier, September 25, 1970)

After finishing the marquees every Tuesday night, Kenny and I stopped in the Parkway’s projection booth to get paid. Finlay, who maintained a small living room there, was usually watching television with his mother between changing reels.

The Midway drive-in south of town also added adult films to its rotation at that time. While the drive-ins were popular with customers seeking anonymity, they also drew public attention. The Midway’s screen faced the freeway, which meant drivers got a full view of the movies as they passed by. The Parkway’s screen had its back to the freeway, but looked out upon Stony Point Road, a rural lane that was often lined with parked cars during X-rated showings.

Outraged parents and religious leaders appealed to city hall to shut down adult films at the drive-ins on the grounds that they were creating safety hazards for distracted drivers. They also complained that underaged teenagers were not being carded for X-rated films, or else were sneaking in, hidden in car trunks. In response, police increased their patrols of the drive-ins during the showing of adult films.

The Showcase remained the only theater in town showing family fare. That was important to me, as the theater served as a clubhouse for my clique of high school friends. One of our classmates, Tom Gaffey, was assistant manager, and since the Showcase’s manager was off most evenings playing cards, Tom was in charge, allowing us the run of the place.

In September, 1971, Finlay began screening the country’s first hardcore hit movie, Mona. Unlike the soft porn he had been running, the sex in Mona was not simulated. The film ran at the State for five continuous weeks, packing in audiences. By the fall of 1972, the State, Parkway, and Midway theaters were running adult films almost exclusively, both hard and soft porn, drawing customers from hours away by car, and earning Petaluma a reputation as the Hardcore Capital of the North Bay.

That Christmas, Finlay upped the ante, screening the film Deep Throat at the State. Classified as hardcore due to its graphic enactments of oral, vaginal and anal sex, group sex, and masturbation in a dozen and a half sex scenes, it was among the first pornographic films to feature relatively high production values with both plot and character development. Drawing half of its audience from middle class married couples and single couples on dates, Deep Throat ushered in a new acceptability for X-rated films that The New York Times dubbed “porno chic.”

Poster for Deep Throat at State Theater, December, 1972 (photo in public domain)

In the early spring of 1973, Tocchini leased the Showcase to Finlay, providing him with a monopoly on Petaluma’s three theaters. Finlay brought in his own staff at the theater, putting an end to our teen clubhouse. With the State and Parkway showing adult films, he maintained the Showcase as the only venue in town for family fare. Meanwhile, Deep Throat became the most popular movie ever to play in Petaluma, running 28 consecutive weeks until Petaluma’s city council decided in late May to shut it down.

At the time, the film faced obscenity charges in at least a dozen American cities. However, as Sonoma County’s district attorney warned the city council, getting a conviction would prove difficult, as there was no common legal definition of pornography to cite.

State Theater showing Behind the Green Door in 1973, next door to Christian bookstore (Sonoma County Library)

Kenny was working as a projectionist at the State when the Petaluma police showed up to confiscate Deep Throat. Finlay immediately substituted it with another hardcore hit film, Behind the Green Door. A few days later, the police came back with a warrant for that film. Finlay replaced it with another copy he was running simultaneously at his theater in Boyes Hot Springs. Having just turned 18, I was hired to shuttle the film reels between the two theaters each evening in my father’s LeMans, until police also confiscated that copy of the film.

At his arraignment before Petaluma judge Alexander McMahon, Finlay was charged with exhibiting obscene matter and “assisting persons (actors) to expose themselves.” In the district attorney’s filing of the charges, he cited a related case in New York where a judge had denounced Deep Throat as “a nadir of decadence and a Sodom and Gomorrah gone wild before the fire.”

The second copy of Behind the Green Door was returned to Finlay at the arraignment, as the original warrant only specified one copy. He immediately began re-screening it at the State until he was able to replaced it a few weeks later with another copy of Deep Throat.

On June 4, 1973, a few days before my high school graduation, the city council, passed an ordinance prohibiting films with “explicit sexual materials” from being shown at drive-in theaters. At the recommendation of legal counsel, they avoided use of the word pornography. That put an end to X-rated films at the Parkway, but not the Midway, which was outside city limits. County supervisors later passed a similar ordinance a few months later, targeted specifically at the Midway.

In late June of 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling defining obscenity as based in part on community standards. Intended to give local communities more agency in applying their own moral standards, the ruling actually served to undermine Petaluma’s case. Judge McMahon dismissed the charges against Finlay on the grounds that the prosecution failed to present evidence of a community standard of obscenity.

Elevated to a symbol of free speech and free sex thanks to the trial’s publicity, Deep Throat continued to draw audiences to the State, where it ran continuously until June 1974, and then episodically until the summer of 1976, almost four years after its Petaluma premiere. Finlay also acquired the Midway during that time and, in defiance of the county ordinance, began screening adult-only films there again.

As cable television and video rentals further eroded theater attendance, theater operators shifted to multiplexes, placing many screens under one roof to provide customers with more simultaneous viewing options. Petaluma’s first multi-plex theater, Washington Square Cinemas, opened at the shopping mall of the same name in 1976.

State Theater, mid-1970s (photo source unknown)

In the late 1970s, as home video began to cut into pornography ticket sales, Finlay exited the theater business in Petaluma. The new owners of the State transformed it into a repertory theater they called the Plaza, featuring art-house and foreign films. The Showcase was purchased by a group that renovated it into a performing arts center renamed the Phoenix.

Tocchini took back the Parkway, continuing to screen largely second-run family features. He also purchased the Midway, renaming it the Sonomarin Drive-in and maintaining its roster of hardcore adult films, which by that time movie producers were rating on their own as “XX” or“XXX” to distinguish them from soft porn (the X-rating itself was changed in 1990 to NC-17).

The Sonomarin Drive-in (formerly the Midway) along Highway 101, south of town, early 1980s (photo in the public domain)

“We like the X-rated movies,” Toccini said at the time, “because it eliminates competition for commercial films in our immediate area.”

Rising land prices and the continued transition to home video brought an end to the Parkway in 1986, taking with it what had once been a way of life for families and teenagers in Petaluma. The site was eventually converted into a golf driving range. The Sonomarin (Midway) followed in 1988, the property later purchased by the state of California for use as a flood control reservoir.

Closure of the Parkway Auto Movies, 1986 (Photo Sonoma County Library)

For those like Kenny and me, who came of age during the Golden Age of Porn, Petaluma’s reign as the Hard Core Capital of the North Bay left an indelible mark. As our former boss Finlay proudly noted, “Deep Throat put this city on the map.”

SOURCES:

Newspapers

Los Angeles Times: David J. Fox, “X Film Rating Dropped and Replaced by NC-17,” September 27, 1990.

The New York Times Magazine: Ralph Blumenthal, “Porno chic; ‘Hard-core’ grows fashionable—and very profitable,” January 21, 1973.

Petaluma Argus-Courier: “Sale is Finalized,” June 8, 1967; “Mad Hatters at Spa,” Bill Soberanes column, November 24, 1967; “New Drive-in to Open Here Friday,” December 14, 1967; “California Theater Sold,” September 25, 1968; “Filmmakers Becoming New Breed,” December 27, 1969; Midway film ad for X-rated Paranoia, November 21, 1969; “In Defense of New Rating System,” December 6, 1969; film ads for the State and Parkway theaters, January, 1969 – March 15, 1970; film ads for the State Theaters, September 1-October 6, 1970; “Group Campaigns for Family Movies,” February 3, 1972; ad for State Theater featuring Deep Throat, December 13, 1972; “Showcase Movie Theater Leased,” February 8, 1973; “Sex Movie Measure O.K.’d,” May 22, 1973; “City Asks Help on X-Rated Movies,” May 19, 1973; “City Police Seize Sex Film,” May 24, 1973; “Second Sex Film Seized at Movie Theater Here,” June 5, 1973; “Duplicated Sex Film Seized by Police,” June 6. 1973; “X-Rated Movies Charges Filed,” June 11, 1973; “Plea Scheduled on Sex Movies Charges,” June 12, 1973; “Should Tackle Real Problems,” September 5, 1973; “Civil Offense for Drive-in X-Rated Films,” September 25, 1973; “Controversial Film Ends Long Run Here,” June 6, 1974; ad for Deep Throat at Midway, September 29, 1976; Final ad for Deep Throat, May 20, 1976 (The record for a continuous run of Deep Throat was ten years at the Pussycat Theater in Hollywood, “Hologram USA Hollywood Theater,” http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/2364); “Opening Set for New Firms,” July 15, 1976; “X-rated Movies Leave the Downtown,” February 1, 1977; “New Owners to Reopen Theater,” May 25, 1977; “Rejuvenated Theater to Return as Performing Arts Center,” May 23, 1979; “Drive-in Theaters A Dying Breed,” January 25, 1980; “Adult Films Are Not Appreciated,” April 14, 1983; “Parkway Closure Ends An Era,” January 24, 1986; “Drive-in a ‘Headache,’” December 17, 1986; “Washington Square Mixes Movies, Videos,” June 12, 1987; “X-rated Drive-in to be Sold,” August 13, 1988; Harlan Osborne, “Tocchini Family Builds Legacy with Sonoma County Theaters,” December 8, 2016.

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: “Showcase Theater Leased,” February 7, 1973; “Hard Core Capital of North Bay,” May 25, 1973; Porno Trial Begins,” September 12, 1973.

Books and Websites

Film History of the 1970s, filmsite.org.

Alison M. Parker, “Mothering the Movies,” Movies Censorship and American Culture, Francis G. Couvares, ed. (University of Massachusetts Press, 2006).

Susanna Paasonen and Laura Saarenmaa, “The Golden Age of Porn: Nostalgia and History in Cinema,” Pornification (Oxford: Berg Publishing), pp. 23-32.

Scott Tobias, “Midnight Cowboy at 50: Why the X-rated Best Picture Winner Endures,” The Guardian, May 24, 2019.

Interview with Aaron Sizemore, who worked as a projectionist at the Sonomarin and the Parkway: “The Sonomarin from 1983 until its closure in 1989 was operated by the late Allan ‘Duck Dumont’ Shustak, who also operated a couple of hardtop porn houses in the Bay Area. The screen came down in 1989 and the building was demolished in 1991. The property was sold to the state for use as a flood control lake (it was cheaper than elevating the freeway at that spot.”