This California court ruling is a bit old (1989), but it strikes an appealing balance between community interests and free expression… The state Supreme Court on Thursday gave local governments more power to use “porn zoning” laws to restrict the location of theaters that show sexually explicit movies.In a widely watched test of municipal authority, […]
Month: October 2006
Even Hollywood Moved to Crack Down on Its Adult Businesses
Even Hollywood, hardly a center of conservative prudishness, years ago decided stricter adult-use zoning was in order… City and law enforcement officials long ago concluded that much of the prostitution, lewd behavior and other crime as well as the general seediness that plagues Hollywood emanates from the concentration of pornography shops in the area. Now, […]
Barney Frank: Zoning Balances First Amendment with Community Concerns
The Washington Post (1995) writes about Boston’s experience with zoning sex shops… …Barney Frank, now one of the most quotable leaders of the House Democratic minority…had been elected to the Massachusetts legislature in 1972, representing part of downtown Boston. A short time later, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that cities could not ban sex-related businesses, but […]
Gazette: “Capital Video tries another tack”
Today’s Gazette reports… The tug-of-war between the city and Capital Video Corp. intensified Tuesday after the Cranston, R.I.-based company filed new plans that could trigger a zoning freeze just as the city is poised to consider regulating porn shops.The latest filing with the city’s planning department involves what are called ‘approval not required’ plans. City […]
Key Adult Use Ordinance Weakened – Urgent Citizen Action Needed
Northampton’s proposed new adult use ordinances made it out of the Economic Development Housing & Land Use Committee (EDHLU) meeting yesterday, but not without being weakened. NoPornNorthampton is concerned about these two changes:1) Adjacent aisles no longer count towards the 1,000 square-foot threshold of adult material on display. The intent of the original ordinance was […]
A Review of Sherry Lee Short, “Making hay while the sun shines: The dynamics of rural strip clubs in the American Upper Midwest, and the community response”
NPN’s Jendi Reiter reviews an essay by Sherry Lee Short, “Making hay while the sun shines: The dynamics of rural strip clubs in the American Upper Midwest, and the community response”. This essay is published in Christine Stark & Rebecca Whisnant, eds., Not for Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography (North Melbourne, Australia: Spinifex Press, […]
Officials in Fairfax County, Virginia Regret Adult Zoning Loophole
Leave a hole in your zoning ordinance and you might regret it later. The Washington Post reports from Fairfax County: [T]o some of its neighbors and many county officials, MVC Latenight is an offensive eyesore in a town struggling to revitalize its historic center. The adults-only business that sells a variety of videos and sex […]
The Republican: “Pornography debate has ‘Hamp talking”
Fred Contrada profiles some of the personalities in the porn debate in the Hampshire & Franklin Plus supplement of today’s Republican. Those mentioned include Adam Cohen and Jendi Reiter of NoPornNorthampton, Peter Brooks of Talk Back Northampton, Carol Gesell of Oh My!, and Corinna Yazbek, who read a passage by Carol Queen to the Northampton […]
People Prefer to Buy Porn Outside Their Own Neighborhoods
An observation from The New York Times undercuts the oft-heard argument that if local people truly don’t want a porn shop, it will wither away: People do not, as a rule, buy pornography in their own neighborhoods. As a result, pornography and sex-aid stores tend to be near mass transit, ideally as near as possible, […]
Not All Happy with Porn Shops in Greenwich Village
Peter Brooks from Talk Back Northampton asserted in a recent Northampton City Council meeting that the residents of Greenwich Village in New York coexist happily with their sex shops. The New York Times reports this isn’t completely true: At a recent community meeting in the Village, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg was pelted for more than […]