Adult Stores, Threatened With Huge Fines, Vow to Remain Open

CNSNews.com ^ | November 19, 2001 | Rick Sarlat

[Stand Watch Listen]

Daytona Beach, Florida (CNSNews.com) - Several adult-oriented businesses are embroiled in a bitter feud with Daytona Beach, Fla. officials who have ordered them to shut down or pay a hefty price.

Three adult stores, XTC Adult Supercenter, The Banned Bookstore and House of Leather were warned to cease offering sexually explicit merchandise or they would be fined $1,000 a day. Four adult clubs have been given a harsher ultimatum -- cease and desist altogether or be fined up to $5,000 a day.

The dispute landed in federal court over the summer, with the businesses suing the city over ordinances which control where such adult-oriented businesses can be placed. Late last month, a federal judge ruled the city could not shut the businesses down, but could levy fines as it saw fit. City officials recently began issuing notices warning about the fines, which are scheduled to take effect this week.

"All they have to do is shut down to avoid the fines,'' said Mayor Baron H. Asher.

The business owners, however, are adamant in their refusal to comply. "The deadline is bogus," said Mike Piscitelli, an associate with Ellenton Video Inc., which owns the XTC. "We're aware of their ultimatum and we know that they can issue citations up to $5,000 a day. However we are absolutely never leaving this location, under any circumstances or conditions.''

Ron Krenn, owner of Molly Brown's I and Molly Brown's II, a bikini dancing club and a nude dancing club respectively, echoed those sentiments.

"We're staying open no matter what," he said. "This whole thing is a circus show. They think they're going to fine us out of business, but we're not going anywhere."

Krenn said city officials have gone as far as fabricating violations to drive him out of business. Molly Brown's I was issued a $2,500 fine for one its female entertainers showing too much skin.

But Asher denied the fine was trumped up and said the city intends to fight until the end.

"We don't intend to back off one iota," Asher said. "We are going to rigidly enforce our zoning ordinances and land-development codes. Period. Exclamation point."

Asher added that if inspectors can prove the adult clubs, which include two others named The Pink Pony and Lollipops, remained open between the time of the first fine until the code board's December meeting, each will face a $100,000 fine.

[pcl]

Your request for Catherine Zeta-Jones...

[HiTech RedNeck]

Even the Bible tells the husband and wife not to withhold from one another except by mutual consent, lest Satan gain an advantage. The foolishness of such behavior is not the question. It obviously invites trouble into the marriage.

However, the wife is not always going to be young. She is probably never going to look like a Playboy bunny. She will probably not be in good health 100% of the time. How do you think the wife would feel if she tried her best to cook delicious meals for her husband but he insisted on going alone to restaurants anyhow? Do you think she'd be motivated to continue to try? Or more likely to give up in heartache and frustration? That's what it's like with porn. It is whoredom on paper.

[rolling_stone]

What is obscene to one person is not to another, do you think a religion that promotes beating women, executing them and the like is not obscene?

[HiTech RedNeck]

fogiving

There IS a god in the world who is "fog-giving." It ain't Jesus.

[slhill]

You know, I have no problem with people saying "porn disgusts me". My problem is with people saying "porn is disgusting". Confusing their opinion with objective fact. It makes arguments very trying.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Would you sooner live next to a swampful of malaria mosquitoes? Or in a dry, safe land?

[slhill]

You continue to beg the question. You have not demonstrated, either by evidence or by theory, that porn is harmful. What's more, if you were interested in making the world safer for everyone, and especially kids, you'd be pushing for poverty-reduction schemes. Poverty is the single biggest determinant of crime the world over. But my guess is you don't think it's the government's business to try to control crime levels by schemes to reduce poverty.

[HiTech RedNeck]

You can't dissolve the virtue/vice concept (as you appear to be trying to do) without dissolving the very reason for making any argument at all. Nothing objectively good? Nothing objectively bad? No hope of transcending "it's only your opinion"? Then there's nothing to preserve or defend. Not even freedom.

[slhill]

You can't dissolve the virtue/vice concept (as you appear to be trying to do) without dissolving the very reason for making any argument at all. Nothing objectively good? Nothing objectively bad? No hope of transcending "it's only your opinion"? Then there's nothing to preserve or defend. Not even freedom.

I stated explicitly that there was an important difference between opinion and facts. Facts are a basis for saying something is objectively good or objectively bad.

[HiTech RedNeck]

If you want to continue to blather a blind academic philosophy, then go right ahead. In the meantime I will do what I can to help adults (rather than adulterers) run the world.

[HiTech RedNeck]

What's more, if you were interested in making the world safer for everyone, and especially kids, you'd be pushing for poverty-reduction schemes

I can see the desperation now: the "lightning rod issue" argument. Because B can be worse than A, then we should not worry about A.

[Bella_Bru]

So, if you were to ban porn, would that include photographing and videotaping your own spouse? How about if you wanted to trade those with good friends?

[slhill]

There's absolutely no need to descend into insult ("blather"; "adulterer"). And my argument is not academic, it is very practical. It says: "if you want the government to stop me from doing something, you'll need a convincing argument -- and one that's based on more than saying you don't like what I do. I might not like what you do, after all."

[slhill]

Not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying that you should explain your inconsistency. I don't feel desparate. So far as I can see, you have yet to provide a single substantive reason for why people should be banned by the government from creating, watching or trading in porn. You have yet to delineate the boundaries of what you consider porn; you have yet to delineate the conditions under which you would ban an activity. All we know so far is that you don't like porn.

[slhill]

I am, however, desperately sorry about my spelling mistake, the result of my concentrating on several disparate tasks at once.

[DoSomethingAboutIt]

Case Law does not support it

Case Law also says abortion is legal. If you live by legal precedent....

IF you will notice, the Libertarians and Liberals who support the Porn/Drug/Abortion/Homosexual Agenda on this forum will not debate you, they will only throw insults in your Direction claiming that you are the Taliban.

There have been direct non-taliban questions and statements directed at you...you however are not replying to them.

[Dataman]

IF you will notice, the Libertarians and Liberals who support the Porn/Drug/Abortion/Homosexual Agenda on this forum will not debate you, they will only throw insults in your Direction claiming that you are the Taliban.

Yes, their arguments are so utterly vacuous. Many of those arguments would cause them to hyperventilate if they were used in defense of Christianity:

If you don't like Christian symbols, you can always look the other way.

Whatever happened to freedom of choice? Why can't kids pray in school?

The Taliban would not allow the name of Jesus Christ to be spoken in public.

Why not allow prayer in public schools? No one is making your kid do anything.

The hypocrisy goes on and on.

[Dataman]

slhill: You have not demonstrated, either by evidence or by theory, that porn is harmful. What's more, if you were interested in making the world safer for everyone, and especially kids, you'd be pushing for poverty-reduction schemes.

Your particular argument, "if you can't prove to me it's wrong, it must not be wrong," is substantially vacant. It becomes clearer as these porn threads continue that the defenders of porn cannot be dissuaded. After all, porn is addicting and who can break an addiction with words?

Very well, slhill, I will give you some objective evidence for the banning of pornography, although you will not accept even one reason because your addiction impedes your ability to reason.

1) Man has a higher nature and a lower brutish nature. This is basic. If you want to know more about this, consult your nearest library. The brutish nature of man must be controlled if civilization is to exist. The higher nature pursues good; love beauty, wisdom, art, God, etc. The lower nature is fueled by lust, hate, greed, envy and the like. To which nature does porn appeal? The lower nature. There is a word for ministering to the lower nature: Pandering. The very nature and purpose of porn is to generate money by appealing to lust, a base desire.

2) The Attorney General's Commission on Pornography found links between pornography and violence against women, child molestion, failed marriages and organized crime. You may not like the conclusions of the Commission. I can understand that. It is, nonetheless, objective evidence.

In the case of item 2, you may dispute that men who would molest kids or beat women didn't become that way because of porn. The evidence says otherwise, but even if I grant you that it still says that woman-beaters and child molesters are porn users.