Dr. Laura and Larry Flynt have at least this much in common: a surf shop owner here. Beach Access owner Tom Moore is no more thrilled about Dr. Laura suing him for slander over a Flynt skateboarding publication in his shop than he is about the Hustler mastermind's taking his side in the flap.
Moore tells the Orange County Register he and his wife can't exactly understand why Dr. Laura Schlessinger sued him for slander after they denied her charge that Beach Access was letting children see pornography in the shop.
But Moore isn't exactly a fan of Flynt, either. "I don't have anything against him, but to have people think we're in the same…world, is misleading," he tells the paper.
Moore and his wife Leslie tell the Register that sales at the shop have been slack while their acquaintance with legal bills has grown since the flap with Dr. Laura began.
"One person spoke over the radio for eight minutes," Leslie Moore says, "and it completely changed our lives. You'd be shocked how many people believe her."
The flap began when Schlessinger and her son spotted Big Brother Skateboarding in a magazine pile in the shop while shopping there in May. Aimed at teenage boys, the magazine does show some sexually graphic, even violent stories and ads. But when Schlessinger accused the store of letting young viewers see downright porn - the radio host called it "stealth porn" - Moore publicly called the accusation a lie, and Schlessinger retaliated with a slander suit.
Among other things, earlier reports suggested, Schlessinger had accused Moore of letting Hustler in disguise be displayed in such viewing range.
The Register notes, though, that the flap began the month after Hustler published old, nude photos of the radio psychologist taken by a former boy friend - which triggered a legal battle between Schlessinger and Flynt.
And the flap has wounded Beach Access manager Ryan Scheiber, who was in the Costa Mesa store the day Schlessinger and her son walked in.
Schlessinger's original radio zap is said also to have singled Scheiber out as the "new-wave looking dude" who "just gloated, basically, in the fact that they knew it, they ordered it, they wanted it," a reference to the skateboarding magazine.
"And he starts flipping through the magazine with a big smile on his face and says nobody else has brought this up," Schlessinger crowed on the air of Scheiber. "He laughed in my face."
"This is not the image I want all over TV and radio," the 22-year-old Scheiber tells the Register. "I think I'm leading a pretty responsible life for somebody my age."
Schlessinger would not grant an interview to the paper, but her spokesman, Allan Mayer, told the paper she's standing by her story and that it has nothing to do with the old nude photos.
"You can say something is incorrect, but you can't say somebody has lied," he says.
