The Republican checked in with Capital Video on the status of their porn shop at 135 King Street, still undergoing renovations. The newspaper reports today:
See also:
Ask Monster to reject Capital Video’s job ads
Capital Video makes its money from racist magazines (e.g. World of Black Bondage), magazines that glorify the physical restraint and whipping of women, movies like “Use Em’ Abuse Em’ & Lose Em’ #9” (“Ride along as we pick up ordinary young women f***’em senseless and dump’em! It’s all good clean fun!”), stories about incest, and other abusive fare. We document this in detail at http://nopornnorthampton.org/…
Although the text of Capital Video’s job listings meets your Terms of Use, quoted below, their core business practices do not. Please consider removing their job listings and those of their affiliates at your earliest opportunity…
A Hostile Work Environment: The Porn Sections of Movie Gallery Video Stores
When men, and sometimes women, rent the adult videos, they more often than not, have remarks to the check-out person as they leave the store. It is not unusual for them to say things like, “Come home with me and be my b****,” “We’ll enjoy this movie together,” or “It will be a blast!” I have been told that the women in the movies are referred to as the man’s b****. It is automatically assumed that we are willing participants in the sexual content of the videos…
The type of low life [clientele] this brought into the store was disgusting! I’m originally from the LA area and I’m not naive to that fact that porno exists, but this was shocking!… When the rentals came back, they were usually late if they came back at all. Then I would get into huge arguments w/ people about why they can’t rent anymore porn till they pay their late fees for the last porn. The conditions they were in upon return was disgusting too, I felt like I needed tongs and sanitary wipes after checking them in…
I never in my life had been so verbally abused, names that I couldn’t help be shocked by and found myself not keeping with the “customers always right” policies. Retaliating back verbally in my own self defense…
Improv Resource Center: True Porn Clerk Stories (explicit language)
…The “Little White Chicks, Big Black Monster Dicks” (note intriguing combination of race and fetish) series has some of the most offensive cover art I’ve ever seen, not because of the sexual content but because it’s incredibly racist. The little white chicks look at you demurely over their shoulders while surrounded by scowling African-American men. The men are repeatedly referred to as “monsters” (“monster dicks” itself doesn’t bother me because it merely implies that said dicks are monstrously large, but referring to men themselves as monsters is another story) and their faces are actually mounted on cartoon animal bodies. There’s no way in hell you could put that cover on, say, a book and not get your store burnt down…
Sometimes people get animalistic about the tapes. For the real addicts (I’m convinced that porn is like alcohol: some people can stop at just one every now and then, some people just binge on weekends, and some people get genuinely, horribly addicted) the reptilian brain kicks in. They hit the magic portion of the tape and they’re done. They pop out the tape and slam in another one, and the next day the stack comes back, unrewound and covered in goo…
The Anime section is the one that really makes me cringe. It’s upstairs in the general releases since it’s all, you know, cartoons, and some of it is charming fare like My Neighbor Totoro. But a lot of it is incredibly hardcore stuff – way worse than we’ll allow in the real-people porn downstairs. My position on porn is that I’m fine with whatever floats your boat, as long as everyone involved is a consenting adult. Manga throws both of those rules out the window. Sure, all the boxes claim that all the characters are at least 18, but a lot of them are clearly drawn to look about 12. And there’s a lot of raping. Not just run-of-the-mill raping, either – we’re talking about triple-penetration rape by demons…
The most common fetish, if you can call something so common a fetish, is for borderline jailbait. This is true of both straight and gay porn. The gay series to watch are Eighteen Today, Just 18 and Gay and First Time Tryers. The straight series are Bring ‘Em Young, Barely Legal, and, horrifyingly, Faces with Braces…
A lot of fetishizing has to do with unwitting or unwilling participants, and that runs pretty hard up against my “whatever floats your boat” policy…
I don’t understand the need to degrade someone. But that need is definitely, sadly out there. One of our best-renting titles of long standing is called Grudge Fuck.* It rents right back out as soon as we can replace the tag. Every time…
Rocco’s Animal Trainer series, I’m told, traditionally ends with Rocco fucking a woman up the ass while he shoves her head into a toilet and flushes…
I caught another jerker in the porn section today. It’s amazing – I’m already jaded about it…
An Account of the Working Conditions at Capital Video Headquarters (2005)
Keith O’Connor got electrocuted grabbing art dept. macs out of a puddle when metro offices flooded in december rains. Early one morning Alan found Keith on the floor literally knocked out of his shoes and mumbling. Keith stumbled to his feet only to throw up, and was dingy all week…
What Metro director delivered a title which prominently featured a location shot of a HIGH SCHOOL opening the porn tape?…
Metro sales are so bad that Kenny was required to put Metro payroll on his credit card for the first time last week…
Which One of These Does Not Belong on Downtown King Street?
Potential Nuisance Claims Against Capital Video
While most cases concern physical interference with land, as from a sign that blocks the visibility of or access to plaintiff’s business, the tort is not thus limited. For instance, in Frandsen v. Mayer, 155 N.W.2d 294 (N.D. 1967), the court opined that large advertising signs did not constitute a nuisance per se if safely constructed, maintained in a clean and sightly manner, and bearing no objectionable advertisements. The offensiveness of a particular display is a legitimate consideration in a nuisance claim. “[I]n the appropriate case recovery will be permitted under the law of nuisance for an interference with visual aesthetic sensibilities,” where the offending object or display is such as would inconvenience or annoy the average person, not just a particularly sensitive neighbor. Hay v. Stevens, 271 Or. 16, 20 (1975) (finding a wire boundary fence between the parties’ property not a nuisance because it served a useful purpose). [emphasis added]
In Bloss v. Paris Township, 380 Mich. 466 (1968), the town enjoined as a public nuisance defendant’s operation of an outdoor drive-in theater in such a manner that pictures which related to sex and human anatomy and were not appropriate for minors were viewable by children on public streets, on residential properties, and in private homes without the consent of property owners and parents. The Supreme Court of Michigan rejected defendant’s freedom of speech and press claims under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, saying that the constitutional right to free expression does not encompass forcing one’s speech on an unwilling audience, in violation of their property rights. Bloss, p. 471. [emphasis added]…
Lesley S. Rich, a lawyer for the video store, said there “was a lot of utility work on the building” that contractors needed permits for. “It’s a little slow,” he said. “Supposedly, it’s all set…”
Rich said they expect to begin hiring in a couple of weeks.
The store is part of a New England chain that will feature adult DVDs, videos and magazines, adult toys and sex paraphernalia, but it will not offer private booths for viewing sexually explicit materials after the City Council in November approved three zoning amendments that restrict and regulate sex-oriented businesses in the city.
See also:
Ask Monster to reject Capital Video’s job ads
Capital Video makes its money from racist magazines (e.g. World of Black Bondage), magazines that glorify the physical restraint and whipping of women, movies like “Use Em’ Abuse Em’ & Lose Em’ #9” (“Ride along as we pick up ordinary young women f***’em senseless and dump’em! It’s all good clean fun!”), stories about incest, and other abusive fare. We document this in detail at http://nopornnorthampton.org/…
Although the text of Capital Video’s job listings meets your Terms of Use, quoted below, their core business practices do not. Please consider removing their job listings and those of their affiliates at your earliest opportunity…
A Hostile Work Environment: The Porn Sections of Movie Gallery Video Stores
When men, and sometimes women, rent the adult videos, they more often than not, have remarks to the check-out person as they leave the store. It is not unusual for them to say things like, “Come home with me and be my b****,” “We’ll enjoy this movie together,” or “It will be a blast!” I have been told that the women in the movies are referred to as the man’s b****. It is automatically assumed that we are willing participants in the sexual content of the videos…
The type of low life [clientele] this brought into the store was disgusting! I’m originally from the LA area and I’m not naive to that fact that porno exists, but this was shocking!… When the rentals came back, they were usually late if they came back at all. Then I would get into huge arguments w/ people about why they can’t rent anymore porn till they pay their late fees for the last porn. The conditions they were in upon return was disgusting too, I felt like I needed tongs and sanitary wipes after checking them in…
I never in my life had been so verbally abused, names that I couldn’t help be shocked by and found myself not keeping with the “customers always right” policies. Retaliating back verbally in my own self defense…
Improv Resource Center: True Porn Clerk Stories (explicit language)
…The “Little White Chicks, Big Black Monster Dicks” (note intriguing combination of race and fetish) series has some of the most offensive cover art I’ve ever seen, not because of the sexual content but because it’s incredibly racist. The little white chicks look at you demurely over their shoulders while surrounded by scowling African-American men. The men are repeatedly referred to as “monsters” (“monster dicks” itself doesn’t bother me because it merely implies that said dicks are monstrously large, but referring to men themselves as monsters is another story) and their faces are actually mounted on cartoon animal bodies. There’s no way in hell you could put that cover on, say, a book and not get your store burnt down…
Sometimes people get animalistic about the tapes. For the real addicts (I’m convinced that porn is like alcohol: some people can stop at just one every now and then, some people just binge on weekends, and some people get genuinely, horribly addicted) the reptilian brain kicks in. They hit the magic portion of the tape and they’re done. They pop out the tape and slam in another one, and the next day the stack comes back, unrewound and covered in goo…
The Anime section is the one that really makes me cringe. It’s upstairs in the general releases since it’s all, you know, cartoons, and some of it is charming fare like My Neighbor Totoro. But a lot of it is incredibly hardcore stuff – way worse than we’ll allow in the real-people porn downstairs. My position on porn is that I’m fine with whatever floats your boat, as long as everyone involved is a consenting adult. Manga throws both of those rules out the window. Sure, all the boxes claim that all the characters are at least 18, but a lot of them are clearly drawn to look about 12. And there’s a lot of raping. Not just run-of-the-mill raping, either – we’re talking about triple-penetration rape by demons…
The most common fetish, if you can call something so common a fetish, is for borderline jailbait. This is true of both straight and gay porn. The gay series to watch are Eighteen Today, Just 18 and Gay and First Time Tryers. The straight series are Bring ‘Em Young, Barely Legal, and, horrifyingly, Faces with Braces…
A lot of fetishizing has to do with unwitting or unwilling participants, and that runs pretty hard up against my “whatever floats your boat” policy…
I don’t understand the need to degrade someone. But that need is definitely, sadly out there. One of our best-renting titles of long standing is called Grudge Fuck.* It rents right back out as soon as we can replace the tag. Every time…
Rocco’s Animal Trainer series, I’m told, traditionally ends with Rocco fucking a woman up the ass while he shoves her head into a toilet and flushes…
I caught another jerker in the porn section today. It’s amazing – I’m already jaded about it…
An Account of the Working Conditions at Capital Video Headquarters (2005)
Keith O’Connor got electrocuted grabbing art dept. macs out of a puddle when metro offices flooded in december rains. Early one morning Alan found Keith on the floor literally knocked out of his shoes and mumbling. Keith stumbled to his feet only to throw up, and was dingy all week…
What Metro director delivered a title which prominently featured a location shot of a HIGH SCHOOL opening the porn tape?…
Metro sales are so bad that Kenny was required to put Metro payroll on his credit card for the first time last week…
Which One of These Does Not Belong on Downtown King Street?
Capital Video’s Victoria’s Secret Standard: Not Compatible with Northampton’s Signage Regulations
The problem is, this standard is vague, loose, changing, and itself might well violate Northampton’s site plan approval criteria (PDF), which state that:
The problem is, this standard is vague, loose, changing, and itself might well violate Northampton’s site plan approval criteria (PDF), which state that:
No signs, text, graphics, pictures, publications, videotapes, CDs, DVDs, movies, covers, merchandise or other objects, implements, items or advertising, depicting, describing sexual conduct or sexual excitement as defined in MGL Chpt. 272, §31 shall be displayed in the windows or on any building or be visible to the public from the street, pedestrian sidewalks, walkways, or bikepaths or from other areas outside such establishments.
For an example of a Victoria’s Secret store display, here is a 2005 report from Newsweek…
This display [more pictures], almost certainly not in compliance with current Northampton signage regulations, is an example of how Northampton’s Planning Board was hasty in approving Capital Video’s Site Plan. Capital Video has not demonstrated that it knows what it means to comply with Northampton’s laws.
This display [more pictures], almost certainly not in compliance with current Northampton signage regulations, is an example of how Northampton’s Planning Board was hasty in approving Capital Video’s Site Plan. Capital Video has not demonstrated that it knows what it means to comply with Northampton’s laws.
Potential Nuisance Claims Against Capital Video
While most cases concern physical interference with land, as from a sign that blocks the visibility of or access to plaintiff’s business, the tort is not thus limited. For instance, in Frandsen v. Mayer, 155 N.W.2d 294 (N.D. 1967), the court opined that large advertising signs did not constitute a nuisance per se if safely constructed, maintained in a clean and sightly manner, and bearing no objectionable advertisements. The offensiveness of a particular display is a legitimate consideration in a nuisance claim. “[I]n the appropriate case recovery will be permitted under the law of nuisance for an interference with visual aesthetic sensibilities,” where the offending object or display is such as would inconvenience or annoy the average person, not just a particularly sensitive neighbor. Hay v. Stevens, 271 Or. 16, 20 (1975) (finding a wire boundary fence between the parties’ property not a nuisance because it served a useful purpose). [emphasis added]
In Bloss v. Paris Township, 380 Mich. 466 (1968), the town enjoined as a public nuisance defendant’s operation of an outdoor drive-in theater in such a manner that pictures which related to sex and human anatomy and were not appropriate for minors were viewable by children on public streets, on residential properties, and in private homes without the consent of property owners and parents. The Supreme Court of Michigan rejected defendant’s freedom of speech and press claims under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, saying that the constitutional right to free expression does not encompass forcing one’s speech on an unwilling audience, in violation of their property rights. Bloss, p. 471. [emphasis added]…