Some of our opponents have claimed that life in the sex industry is liberating and empowering for women. That didn’t prove to be the case for Karen Harrison, who share her experience at a public hearing in Easthampton. The Union-News reports… About 200 opponents turned out in opposition to nude dancing last night at a […]
Continue reading Former Stripper Tells Easthampton Hearing about the Life: It Stinks
At today’s Planning Board meeting, NoPornNorthampton had a brief exchange with Capital Video’s Anthony Nota. Public documents submitted to the Planning Board list Mr. Nota as a Capital Video “project manager”. Mr. Nota is a large, tall man. He is pictured here standing in City Council chambers beside Capital Video’s lawyer, Michael Pill. Towards the end of […]
Continue reading Capital Video Representative Swears at NoPornNorthampton During Public Meeting
Northampton’s citizens and legal community have every right to question the judgment of attorney Michael Pill in agreeing to represent the Capital Video porn store. John P. DiBartolo’s letter (Gazette, 10/26/06), responding to Andrew Sirulnik’s 10/24 guest column, argues that lawyers’ willingness to take on unpopular clients is what makes our system of justice work. […]
Michael Pill, the attorney for pornography franchise Capital Video Corporation, handed out a memorandum (PDF) at the October 19 City Council meeting that seriously misrepresents the facts and issues at stake in the controversy over Capital Video’s plans to open a 6,200-square-foot adult emporium at 135 King Street, adjacent to a residential neighborhood. Dr. Pill (he has […]
Today’s Gazette publishes a letter to the editor by Robin Maltz of Northampton. She agrees with NoPornNorthampton in that she believes “the porn industry is corrupt, sexist and exploitative.” She also “take[s] issue with the proposed location of Capital Video” at 135 King Street.Ms. Maltz is less approving of our recent mass-mailed open letter to […]
Continue reading A Response to “Critics of the porn store don’t speak for everyone”
Capital Video’s attorney, Michael Pill, likes to style himself as the defender of the underdog. Let’s ask, who is the underdog in this situation, and who has power?Capital Video describes itself as “the largest adult retail chain in the nation”. Owner Kenneth Guarino told Dun & Bradstreet that sales for 2005 amounted to $21,005,399. He […]
Many porn shop defenders appear to believe that shame is always bad, and public shaming is always wrong. Capital Video attorney Michael Pill is quoted in today’s Republican as saying, “‘I hope we’ve gone beyond Puritan Massachusetts and the scarlet letter and public shaming.’”We say that shame is not always bad. Shame is a natural […]
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 […]
Continue reading Barney Frank: Zoning Balances First Amendment with Community Concerns
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, […]
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 […]
Continue reading The Republican: “Pornography debate has ‘Hamp talking”