LOS ANGELES – With more counties, municipalities and potentially the state embracing legislation to control when, where and how adult content may be produced, it may not be long before the adult entertainment industry is squeezed out of southern California altogether.
In the most notorious example of paranoid nanny-ism to face California’s adult industry, Los Angeles County remains mired in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of an ordinance passed by voters last November. Colloquially known as Measure B, the ordinance requires adult studios to obtain special filming permits and mandates condoms, dental dams and other barrier protection be used in all sexually explicit productions. Last week, the court received a request for summary judgment from the plaintiffs and a motion to dismiss from an intervenor siding with the county, but the judge seems inclined to allow the case to proceed to a hearing scheduled to take place in early July.
Also last week, the City of Camarillo extended its moratorium on pornographic film permits through at least the end of 2013, and Ventura County approved a condom mandate and filming-permit measure. Simi Valley, which like Camarillo is located in Ventura County, passed an ordinance mandating condoms earlier this year.
Other SoCal governing bodies reportedly are considering similar moves. In many cases, politicians’ argument that condom mandates will protect the public from diseases rumored to be spread by porn stars ring hollow. In Ventura County, for example, the majority of public comments received while commissioners considered the new ordinance smacked more of “not in my backyard” conservative morality than genuine concern for anyone’s health.
Lest adult content producers think they might be able to relocate to the middle or northern sections of California, the state, too, has joined the legislative parade. Assembly Bill 332, sponsored by Assemblyman Isadore Hall III [D-Compton], essentially would expand Los Angeles County’s Measure B statewide. The bill passed the California State Assembly’s Labor and Employment Committee in April and now likely faces a May 24 hearing before the Appropriations Committee.
The adult entertainment industry has discussed packing up and heading en masse for friendlier climes, but even that may not prove to be a workable solution. AIDS Healthcare Foundation — the charitable organization that wrote, financed and shepherded the ballot initiative resulting in Measure B and now is backing AB 332 as well as bearing the majority of the ordinance’s legal defense — has threatened to take the condoms-in-porn crusade nationwide.
The adult industry “cannot just pick up their stakes and move to another state,” AHF President Michael Weinstein told The New York Times in January. “They’d hardly be welcomed in West Virginia or Utah or Mississippi, or even a place like Nevada, where legal prostitution is highly regulated and condoms are required. And we will follow them wherever they go.”
