Delivering Weekly Censorship Updates to the Adult Entertainment Industry
Vol. X, No. 19, May 18, 2007 - A Member Service of the Free Speech Coalition Free Speech X-press is researched and edited by Scott Ross.
Copyright 2007 Free Speech Coalition. Permission to reprint granted to FSC members; please give credit.
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Adult Retailer Delivers Supreme Court Petition
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Adult retailer Sherri Williams ascended the steps of the United States Supreme Court building at 1 p.m. this past Monday to deliver to the court clerk a copy of her petition for certiorari, asking the high court to rule on whether the Alabama law prohibiting the sale of vibrators for the purpose of sexual stimulation is constitutional.
"My attorney, Roger Wilcox, was up all night finishing the petition," Williams told AVN.com shortly before filing her petition, "and he'll have the official printed copies ready later this afternoon for filing. What I have here isn't the official petition; we're leaving that to the attorney, because I want everything to go just right with the filing."
According to Williams, Reed Lee, a First Amendment attorney and board member of the Free Speech Coalition, had discussed with her the possibility of the Coalition writing an amicus brief on her behalf, and Lee and Wilcox will be finalizing that offer in the near future, she said.
Williams also said she received a call from the D.C. park police to ask if she was planning to call for any sort of demonstration in support of her petition, but she assured them that it would just be her, some reporters and her film crew.
"Wouldn't it be funny, though, if a bunch of women came out here and used their vibrators to have orgasms on the steps of the Supreme Court building?" she joked.
Williams is contesting an Alabama law that prohibits the sale of vibrators. The relevant statute bans any "device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs."
Williams has fought the Alabama statute since it became law in 1998. On Valentine's Day of this year, the 11the Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ban as constitutional, saying "the state's interest in preserving and promoting public morality provides a rational basis for the challenged statute."
http://avn.com/index_cache.php?Primary_Navigation=Articles&Action=View_Article&Content_ID=288985
Federal Court Denies Oregon Adult Video Store Appeal
BEAVERTON, Ore. - The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has sided with the city of Beaverton in a long-running legal battle with the owners of Fantasy Adult Video over their attempt to keep their store open 24 hours a day.
Oregon Entertainment Corporation has been fighting to secure a 24-hour operations permit for Fantasy Adult Video since 1999. The city has won several court victories against the adult retailer, despite arguments that the city's attempt to regulate the store's hours of operation is unconstitutional.
According to the Beaverton Valley Times, the Ninth Circuit upheld this past Saturday a 2005 summary judgment that stated that Oregon Entertainment Corp. had failed to demonstrate that the city had violated their constitutional rights by deciding not to allow Fantasy Adult Video to stay open 24 hours a day.
The Ninth Circuit also rejected a claim by the owners of Fantasy Adult Video that their Fourteenth Amendment due-process rights were ignored by the court when they were denied the opportunity to cross-examine witnesses in the case, blocking its use of the property without the proper legal process. The court ruled that Oregon Entertainment had no legal right to cross-examine witnesses in the hearings because the company "didn't have a vested property right in a conditional-use permit."
Fantasy Adult Video is located in a so-called "Community Service zone", allowing it to operate between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m., but requiring a "conditional-use" permit to operate between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m.
Attorneys for Oregon Entertainment have previously stated that the city of Beaverton did not have the discretion to deny the store of a 24-hour permit in 2003, claiming that the city's conditional-use permit denial amounted to "prior restraint," effectively violating the store's constitutional rights.
The company's original application for a 24-hour permit in 1999 was rejected, amidst speculative concerns about rising crime and the lowering of property value in the area. The decision was then upheld by both the state Land Use Board of Appeals and the Oregon Court of Appeals.
The store owners re-applied for a conditional-use permit in March 2003, presenting evidence to the Planning Commission that the city had not suffered adverse secondary effects during the four years the store had been open.
http://www.beavertonvalleytimes.com/news/story.php?story_id=117903445187444000
Ordinance Adopted to Ban Porn in Ark. City Won't Pass Judicial Scrutiny, says Adult Industry Lawyer
PALESTINE, Ark. - The City Council unanimously voted last week to adopt an ordinance that would ban the sale of pornography within city limits, which was drafted at the request of Mayor Becky Dunn.
City Attorney Steve Routon drafted the ordinance, which gives the city the power to take any adult business considered a "nuisance" to court. Routon said he is unsure whether it is constitutional, "but you must start somewhere," he said.
"Palestine's ordinance completely banning the sale of absolutely constitutionally protected speech can't pass judicial scrutiny," adult industry lawyer Robert Apgood told XBIZ. "The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly articulated the steps a municipality must take if it wishes to regulate this type of speech. Obviously Palestine, Ark., is struggling to stay current with the law of the 20th century. Once they get that far, perhaps it won't take them decades to catch up with the rest of us."
The ordinance also states that "no business shall hereafter be established or located in Palestine ... which sells pornographic materials, pictures or videos."
After Routon's first reading of the ordinance to the council, Councilman Tony Burdett made a motion to suspend the rules and adopt the ordinance. The council then unanimously adopted it.
http://xbiz.com/news_piece.php?id=22982
Adult Store Quits Decade-Long Fight with Fla. City
DANIA BEACH, Fla - After surviving a contentious decade of conflict with city officials, owners of the Fetish Box are finally throwing in the towel.
Sean Newman and Denise Earlman quietly posted a closing sale sign in their store's window front a few weeks ago, and this week confirmed their impending closure to the Miami Herald.
Newman and Earlman, who are a couple, said they might open another store - but not in Dania Beach, whose population was 29,000 last year, according to county records.
''This town is just going nowhere,'' Newman told the Herald.
The owners adapted to and complied with a series of revised zoning laws and other efforts by the city's government to force the store out of the downtown area, despite the fact that the Fetish Box was the only successful business in an otherwise blighted neighborhood.
Newman and Earlman endured several attempts by officials to redevelop the area and label the store as blighted, and Newman said one law even forced them to gut their store's adult video section.
http://www.miamiherald.com/467/story/106004.html
Houston Plans Crack Down on Local Adult Businesses
HOUSTON - The city ordered more than 100 adult businesses to shut down or face civil and criminal penalties in warning letters sent via certified mail last week, the Houston Chronicle reports
"They need to close up," Capt. Steve Jett of the Houston police department's vice unit told the Chronicle. "We wanted to give them fair warning."
In the letters, the city notified owners of adult bookstores, cabarets and other sexually-oriented businesses that they are operating in violation of an ordinance that prohibits such establishments from locating within 1,500 feet of churches, schools, parks and other designated areas of the city.
Passed by the City Council in 1997, the ordinance has been challenged in federal and appellate courts for the past decade on constitutional grounds.
"The sole purpose of this notice is to clarify the City of Houston's legal authority and intent to enforce ordinance provisions governing sexually oriented business enterprises beginning immediately," the letter reads. "This notice is not subject to reconsideration or administrative recourse."
According to the Chronicle report, employees and owners who fail to comply with the order could face arrest on a Class A misdemeanor charge punishable by up to a year in jail and a $4,000 fine. The city also may force adult businesses to close by seeking civil injunctions.
Employees and owners could face arrests on a Class A misdemeanor charge punishable by up to a year in jail and a $4,000 fine. The city also may seek civil injunctions forcing closures.
Topless and fully nude clubs could avoid regulation altogether if their dancers wear bikinis or even skimpier coverings, allowing them to get around the "sexually oriented" classification, police and city officials acknowledged.
At least nine adult businesses have filed new lawsuits challenging the ordinance in state courts over the last few weeks. One key argument challenges the ordinance's provision for "amortization," a process by which the city could let clubs operate for a period after the law takes effect so owners can recoup their investments before moving or closing.
http://www.kvia.com/global/story.asp?s=6481818
Bad for Business, Bad for California
By Matt Gray
The adult business killer legislation, AB 1551, by Assemblyman Calderon, is still slated to push its way through the Legislature in Sacramento. But a brief reprieve was granted this week when the bill was pulled from being heard this coming Monday, and pushed back to a hearing sometime in mid-June.
This legislation, which seeks to tax gross receipts on all products and services for all adult businesses - including inventory tax, and at the time of sale - will undergo amendments which are expected to at least include an actual tax rate. But as written, a typical adult product could be taxed six or eight times before it reaches the end consumer.
There is safety in numbers. This brief reprieve offers the adult entertainment industry a precious opportunity to reach out to its 'friends' and amass an even larger opposition force. Think about every other business that you interact with: printers, couriers, accountants, beauty salons, clothiers, beverage distributors, hotels, and so on.
How will they be impacted? If your profit margins are reduced by having to pay these added taxes, or if you lose business because competitors outside of California can sell the same product for much less, how will that affect businesses which you use? To stay afloat, will you have to cut back on using the services they provide?
These other businesses have a vested interest in helping to protect your business, and it is asking very little for them to write a letter in opposition. In addition to writing their Assembly Member and Senator, they should also write to the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee and urge this bill to be defeated.
You would think a tax upon businesses would kick business associations into action. But, by example, the California Chamber of Commerce has indicated they think this bill will not impact enough of their businesses to justify them taking action. Does that mean they will let some of their members swing in the wind? I wonder if that was discussed during the sign-up process.
The hotel associations have been slow to act, as has the alcohol industry. While we're putting pressure on these groups on the front end, it would help for adult businesses to put pressure on them from a business-to-business perspective at the local level, so they're getting it from both ends at once.
Lawmakers are looking to this legislation for an indication of what the industry will do when challenged. Will the industry roll over and give up? If adult entertainment in California fails, will other states follow? The line has been drawn in the sand, and we must win.
We must step-up the opposition and flood the Capitol with input from the 50,000 workers within the adult entertainment industry, and their friends, who vehemently oppose AB 1551. Assemblyman Calderon thinks he is going to use this legislation to step on the backs of the adult entertainment industry and line his path to becoming the next California Attorney General.
Calderon needs to know that these 50,000+ people take his legislative assault personally, and are not here for his political gain. It needs to become abundantly clear to all lawmakers that the adult entertainment industry is mobilized and will rain down upon those who antagonize it.
All letters should be cc:d to Capital Alliance, 1029 K Street, Suite 25, Sacramento, CA 95814. Addresses for all lawmakers follow the format of: The Honorable [FIRST & LAST NAME], California State Legislature, State Capitol, Sacramento, CA 95814. So, letters to Assemblyman Calderon, for example, would be: The Honorable Chuck Calderon, California State Legislature, State Capitol, Sacramento, CA 95814. (No actual street address needed)
Don't delay, write today, and get those other businesses to write as well. Remember to send your cc: to Capital Alliance. Discussion points and research can be found online at www.thecapitalalliance.com/reports
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Matt Gray is a senior lobbyist for Capital Alliance, a Sacramento based lobbying and government strategies firm. He can be reached at 916-444-5551, or by e-mail: matt@thecapitalalliance.com
15th Annual Gentlemen's Club Owners Expo & 1st Annual STOREROTICA Show
"Two shows in one" is the concept behind holding the 15th Annual Gentlemen's Club Owners Expo, for the owners and operators in the multi-billion-dollar adult nightclub industry, at the same time and place as the 1st Annual STOREROTICA show, a convention and tradeshow for the owners and operators of adult retail stores and intimate apparel boutiques and the vendors who supply them. Both shows boast extensive legal and marketing panels and workshops and will be held August 27-29 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Expo details at http://www.ExoticDancer.com, and STOREROTICA details at http://www.storerotica.com.
Free Speech Coalition Releases Three-Year Strategic Plan
Canoga Park, CA - On Wednesday, May 16, 2007, the Free Speech Coalition (FSC) released its three-year strategic plan. The plan focuses on the areas of Membership, Public Relations, Government, Organizational Development and Litigation.
Prior to the creation of the Strategic Plan, FSC reviewed and revised the organization's mission statement. FSC's past mission statement:
Organized in 1991, Free Speech Coalition is the trade association of the adult entertainment industry. As a 501© (6) not-for-profit corporation, FSC is funded by membership dues as well as by fundraising efforts.
FSC's current mission statement is to:
Lead, protect and support the growth and wellbeing of the adult entertainment community.
"First we considered our foundation, FSC's mission" said Diane Duke, FSC Executive Director. "Then we went about the business of developing a plan to position FSC to further that mission not only for today, but also well into the future."
FSC's Board and staff have developed work plans focused on the implementation of the components of the plan. FSC's Strategic Plan can be viewed in its entirety on its website at www.freespeechcoalition.com.
What works about this plan is that it puts systems in place to strengthen the organization," says Jim Everett, FSC Board President, "while, at the same time, positioning FSC to be responsive to its members and proactive to the threat of outside forces."
Email Xpress@freespeechcoalition.com for more information.
Because of 2257 litigation, it's critical that we have your company's information complete in our database. Are you SURE your company's information is complete? Email UpdateInfo@FreeSpeechCoalition.com to update your company's information now.
NOTE: The data we're tracking, related to 2257, has changed. Please update NOW.
MAY 26 - Arizona Fetish Ball, Scottsdale, AZ
JUNE 7-10 - Cybernet Expo, Tampa Bay, Florida
JUNE 22-24 - Erotica L.A., Los Angeles Convention Center
AUGUST 27-30 - Annual Gentlemen's Club Owners Expo, Las Vegas, NV
AUGUST 27-30 - STOREROTICA Convention and Tradeshow, Las Vegas, NV
SEPT 21-23 - ADULTCON, Los Angeles Convention Center
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.
-- Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865)
The person who makes a success of living is the one who see his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication.
-- Cecil B. DeMille (1881 - 1959)
