BOWLING GREEN, KY & PALMDALE, CA -- The use of local adult zoning and licensing schemes to regulate adult Webcasting may seem absurd, but we have seen several instances of this tactic now. Earlier we reported on a Kitsap County, Washington, couple who were charged with violating an adult entertainment zoning regulation by running a home-based adult Internet business too close to a school. (See X-Press report, “Internet Business Too Close to School,” 2/17/06)

Now comes word from Warren County, Kentucky, that Rebecca J. Fannin, 25, has been charged with operating an unlicensed sexually oriented business for selling sex toys and massage oils online under the name Passionate Gifts. The sex toys themselves were not even in Kentucky, but were sent directly to customers from a supplier in Las Vegas. Fannin said she did hold parties where women and men could look at a catalog of the products to make orders.

"I can't figure out what I did wrong," Fannin said. "I didn't understand I would have to have a permit for an Internet business. I felt like a child molester when they were photographing me and my house."
In the meantime, officials in Palmdale, California, are planning to update their ordinance blocking adult businesses from setting up in residential areas, updating it to address new technologies such as webcasting. Among the changes in the ordinance is language stating it applies to patrons both on- and off-site, such as those viewing by webcast. The existing ordinance language regarding patrons could be construed as applying to only those customers on-site, said Deputy City Attorney Cesar Bertaud.

Information and quotes from Jim Skeen, Los Angeles Daily News, 4/1/06
And from The Associated Press, 4/3/06

---

LAWMAKER RECONSIDERS NET NEUTRALITY

WASHINGTON, DC -- Representative Joe Barton (R-TX), Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has announced that he has modified his position on issues of net neutrality and will adjust his telecommunications bill accordingly in a revised version to come. His action, which represents a turnaround from his earlier statements, is apparently in direct response to charges from Internet companies such as Microsoft, Google and Yahoo that the current version did not go far enough in preventing broadband providers from favoring some Web sites or video streams' connection speeds over others. (See X-Press Report, “Net Neutrality Issues Debated in Congress,” 3/10/06)

The implications of net neutrality policy could be vital for the adult industry. Ask anyone who was around in the Eighties when the major telephone companies decided to discontinue the 800-line billing services because they didn’t like being associated with the phone-sex lines.

Some information drawn from Declan McCullah, CNET News, 4/4/06

---

SECONDARY EFFECTS ARGUED IN CITY MEETING

FLAGLER BEACH, FL -- The City Commission here has approved an expanded (35 acre) parcel of land for adult businesses, a further action in the Commission’s efforts to fix their adult ordinances to meet constitutional muster after getting hit with a federal court lawsuit. Earlier, the Commission reduced the city’s adult entertainment application fee from $10,000 to $500. (See X-Press report, “City Hurries to Fix Ordinance,” 1/27/06)

During the recent 2 1/2 hour special meeting, the outgoing five-member commission also acted to completely revise the city's adult entertainment ordinance, requiring dancers in exotic dance clubs to stay 6 feet from patrons, barring sexually-oriented businesses from selling alcohol, and forcing the city's only existing adult business, the one which filed the lawsuit against the city, club Liquid, to move into the correct, newly expanded, zone within two years.

The meeting in the crowed hall more closely resembled a court trial than a meeting of the City Commission. A lengthy debate took place on whether adult entertainment clubs are harmful to the surrounding neighborhoods. On one side was Richard McCleary, Ph.D., Professor of Social Ecology from the Criminology Department of the University of California-Irvine. McCleary outlined certain studies showing increased levels of crime in areas near sexually-oriented businesses.

The adult side of the issue was represented by First Amendment Attorney Luke Lirot. Lirot pointed to methodological flaws in the studies highlighted by McCleary, whose academic specialties include statistics. Those studies cannot be relied on, said Lirot, because they were done in cities where not much industry existed to begin with, so opening a successful enterprise draws more people to the area, naturally raising crime because more people, statistically speaking, means more crime.

Information drawn from Janette Neuwal’s report in The Daytona Beach News-Online, 4/4/06

---

RULING UPHOLDS ADULT BILLBOARD LAW

ST. LOUIS, MO -- U.S. District Court Judge District Judge Gary Fenner has again ruled that a 2004 state law banning sexually suggestive billboards within one mile of highways is constitutional. In August, Judge Fenner issued a similar decision in a case brought by Passions Video and Gala Entertainment, a Kansas City exotic dance club. In that case Fenner ruled that the state had a right to regulate businesses to promote a governmental interest. In the case of the billboards, that interest was reducing the negative impact of adult advertising on minors and on traffic safety.

The current ruling was in a challenge brought by John Haltom, owner of Johnnie ‘O’s Lingerie Boutique store chain in Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Colorado and Utah. Fenner ruled that the law is reasonable and doesn't prevent Haltom from advertising his stores. It just doesn't allow him to advertise that he sells adult items.

Information drawn from The Associated Press, 4/1/06
And from another AP report, 8/5/05