LOS ANGELES – A striking decline in the number of adult film permits issued in Los Angeles County during 2013 may be hitting the county where it can least afford the injury: in the pocketbook.
Based on figures gleaned from county records, adult industry trade association Free Speech Coalition estimates L.A. County has lost $456,000 in film-permitting revenue. Combined with costs incurred in defending a lawsuit challenging the source of the decline in film permits, the county is fast approaching a large financial sinkhole, FSC Chief Executive Officer Diane Duke implied.
From Jan. 1 through mid-September 2013, film permitting agency FilmLA issued only 24 permits for adult productions in L.A. County, compared to 480 during the same period in 2013. The average fee per permit is $1,000.
Duke lays the revenue loss directly at the feet of the Safer Sex in the Adult Film Industry Act, colloquially known as Measure B. The county ordinance, approved by voters in November 2012, requires condoms and other barrier protection be employed during filming of sexually explicit scenes. In addition, the ordinance requires special permits for and inspections of all adult sets in Los Angeles County. The county has estimated annual enforcement costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
That’s if the law ever gets fully off the ground. In August, a U.S. District Judge threw out portions of the law as unconstitutional. The adult industry plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit challenging Measure B have appealed the district judge’s ruling to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in an attempt to have the entire law invalidated on constitutional grounds.
Even in the best of situations, lawsuits are not inexpensive for defendants, and one hardly could call L.A. County’s reportedly reluctant participation in the Measure B lawsuit the best of situations.
Duke and others have called Measure B ill-considered and short-sighted. She believes L.A. County voters might not have approved the ballot measure that led to the ordinance’s installation had they realized the law would have an adverse impact on a county already reeling under other financial burdens. The ballot measure was created, funded promoted by pro-condom charitable organization AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which has intervened in the lawsuit on behalf of the county but has not defrayed the county’s expense.
“[The FSC] predicted that lost jobs and revenue would be one of the results of AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s misguided attempts to police the adult industry,” Duke said. “As a result of the passage of Measure B, hundreds of thousands of dollars in permit fees have gone elsewhere, and that does not take into consideration the jobs and vendor revenues that have followed the productions out of L.A. County, and for some companies, out of the state of California entirely.”
AIDS Healthcare Foundation maintains the law is necessary to protect adult film performers, and by extension the general public, from sexually transmitted infections.
