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NoPornNorthampton emailed the following message to Robert J. Greeley on Saturday. Having received no response, we now share it with the public. We invite those of similar opinion to contact Mr. Greeley.
Dear Mr. Greeley,
In August, you wrote to a Northampton resident stating that you personally would have rejected Capital Video as a tenant for 135 King Street, but their plans were legal and so you felt your obligation was to carry out your clients’ wishes.
As you are probably aware, the Northampton City Council approved new adult-use zoning on Thursday. Capital Video’s plans for a 6,222-square-foot porn shop at 135 King Street are now not permitted. Accordingly, we request that R.J. Greeley withdraw from this transaction.
Please let me know your reply at your earliest convenience.
Sincerely,
Adam Cohen
in**@no***************.org
NoPornNorthampton.org
351 Pleasant Street, PMB 101
Northampton, MA 01060-3961
In our email, we reprinted a section of this post from August 14…
From: Robert Greeley
Ordinances and Regulations, Real Estate Ethics. permalink.
8 thoughts on “An Open Letter to R.J. Greeley Company”
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What happened to your promises of no censorship or slippery slope? Now you’re going after the leasing agent? Please explain how this is relevant to your goals. And I trust you’ve examined what legal issues Mr. Greeley might face if he were to withdraw from this transaction? How will his withdrawal change anything? Now you seem to be wanting to dictate not only what people can sell and where, but who can act as leasing agents in certain transactions. Talk about your secondary effects.
We are not the government. Nothing we do amounts to state censorship. We can’t subpoena anyone or put them in jail. All we can do is educate and request.
We are always in our rights to ask businesspeople to avoid profiting from suffering. We have amply demonstrated the suffering involved in the making of porn, the suffering of secondary effects, and the suffering of porn addicts. We are concerned that if Capital Video is currently paying rent on 135 King Street, then it is likely that R.J. Greeley is taking a commision on the transaction. Robert Greeley is already on record as saying he would decline Capital Video as a tenant if he were the owner. He claimed as his excuse that Capital Video’s plans were allowed by law. Now they are not.
R.J. Greeley is not a slave of Capital Video or the Goldbergs. Greeley can withdraw from this transaction at any time. It’s time for them to act according to their words and the ethics they claim to subscribe to.
You know full well that censorship is not limited to what governments do.
Are you saying that citizens have no right to criticize another’s speech? I don’t think that’s what our Founders intended. If someone is selling Nazi propaganda, and one could argue that Hustler is, that we must be silent lest Larry Flynt feel censored in any way?
And what about the 40% of porn workers found to have one or more STDs in this study? Just because someone put a camera in front of them, we should have no concern about their being harmed?
Profiting from this material is wrong, and it’s no excuse for Greeley that it happens to be “media”.
Ahhh.. you’ve finally played the Nazi card. The argument has officially reached an all-time low.
In this case it’s warranted. Hustler publishes material with Nazi insignia and anti-Semitic content.
Dear Adam and Jendi:
You do and should have the right to speak your minds, however right or wrong you may be.
And I do think NPN is wrong to a) to advocate state censorship of pornography via the zoning power of government, and b) to paint the entire porn industry with the same brush by c) arguing that porn is inherently harmful, rather than potentially harmful.
But I will fight for your rights to be wrong and/or right!
Yours/AC
I’m glad we can agree that freedom of speech includes the freedom to criticize other people’s speech, or actions.