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

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.

These places have no right to be in business in the First Place IMHO. Corrupting the morals of society is wrong, Case Law Supports this, dating all the way back to the 1800's.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania 1815 in the case of The Commonwealth v. Jesse Sharpless and others, 2 Serg. & R. 91-92, 97, 101-104 (1815), (case of an "a certain lewd...obscene painting, representing a man in an obscene...and indecent posture with a woman..."). Court’s verdict delivered by Judge Duncan: "...Whatever tends to the destruction of morality, in general, may be punishable criminally. Crimes are punishable offenses, not because they are perpetrated publicly, but because their effect is to injure the public... ...A picture tends to excite lust, as strongly as writing; and the showing of a picture is as much a publication as the selling of a book... ...If the privacy of the room was a protection, all the youth of the city might be corrupted, by taking them, one by one, into a chamber, and there inflaming their passions by the exhibition of lascivious pictures." In a demonstration of the strong feelings of the court on this issue, a second Justice, Judge Yates, added to the decision: "Although every immoral act, such as lying, etc., is not indictable, yet where the offense charged is destructive of morality in general...it is punishable at common law. The destruction of morality renders the power of government invalid... The corruption of the public mind, in general, and debauching the manners of youth, in particular, by lewd and obscene pictures exhibited to view, must necessarily be attended with the most injurious consequences.... No man is permitted to corrupt the morals of the people; secret poison can not be thus disseminated."

Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957): "We hold that obscenity is not within the area of constitutionally protected speech or press."

Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, (1973): "This much has been categorically settled by the court, that obscene material is unprotected by the First Amendment."

Paris Adult Theater v. Slaton, (1973): "We categorically disapprove the theory that obscene films acquire Constitutional immunity from state regulation simply because they are exhibited for consenting adults only. Rights and interests other than those of the advocates are involved. These include the interest of the public in the quality of life, the total community environment, the tone of commerce and possibly the public safety itself."

Paris Adult Theatre v. Slaton, (1973): "Mere availability of similar materials by itself means nothing more than other persons are engaged in similar activities [perhaps illegal]."

Hambling v. United States, (1974): "[T]he availability of similar materials on the newsstands of the community does not automatically make them admissible as tending to prove the non-obscenity of the materials which the defendant is charged with circulating."

Paris Adult Theatre v. Slaton, (1973): "The sum of experience affords an ample basis...to conclude that a sensitive, key relationship of human existence, center to family life, community welfare and the development of the human personality, can be debased and distorted by crass commercial exploitation of sex."

Miller v. California (1973): "In our view, to equate the free and robust exchange of ideas and political debate with commercial exploitation of obscene material, demeans the grand conception of the First Amendment and its high purposes in the historic struggle for freedom."

To those saying that Churches and Firearms will be next, The 1st and 2nd Amendment PROTECTS Churches and Firearms.

OBSCENE MATERIAL IS NOT PROTECTED! Liberals, Libertarians, and their Ilk WANT You to think it is, but it is not. Our Founding Fathers did not believe so, Case Law does not support it. Their Protection to corrupt society's morals exists only in the minds of the Libertarian or Liberal.

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