The war on porn
Having solved all of the county’s other problems, there will be more legislation against local adult businesses:
Knox County Commission Monday unanimously passed an ordinance that requires adult businesses to get a new license. However, it’s not as far reaching as you may think.
[boo-hooing and crying about the ordinance not going far enough snipped – What media bias? – Ed.]
Meantime, adult businesses in the county have 30 days to apply for a license. Then everyone who works at the store has to pass a background check.
Why a background check? Wait for it:
“One of the things we want to make sure is that employees of these businesses aren’t felons,” says county Law Director Mike Moyers. “And specific felons, basically not sexual predators or drug dealers. We’re limiting the hours of operation.”
Huh? What the Hell does a felony conviction have to do with working at a porn store? I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to sell illegal drugs illegally at other places too. Are we going to perform checks on folks who work at drive-thru restaurants too? It seems to me, they just want to put an undue burden on the places to make opening such an establishment less appealing. More:
The stores can only be open from 8:00 a.m. to midnight Monday through Saturday. They can’t be open on Sunday under any circumstances.
You should be in church, you heathen, not getting a turgid little nubbin in the porn store.
The most significant thing the ordinance does is define what’s classified as an adult business. Some adult stores found ways to get around the classification under old zoning laws that used the amount of adult inventory.
Blount County had a problem with definition of adult businesses too. But, it seems in Knoxville, people skirted the law:
“On Lovell Road right now, there’s a store that sells X-rated videos and they have three, two, maybe three antique Harley Davidson motorcycles in there for sale. The value of those three motorcycles is greater than the value of all the X-rated material they have for sale. So they’ve circumvented the current zoning ordinance,” Griess explains.
I’m glad they’re trying to keep me safe from porn by requiring five tests ranging from the amount of displayed merchandise to the amount of revenue derived from adult merchandise. I mean, you can’t help but go in there. There’s nothing preventing me from going in there except, you know, self restraint and personal responsibility.
May 27th, 2005 at 12:31 pm
[…] trip in to raise money. But the need to wait until I return from my vacation. More here, here and here.
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March 30th, 2005 at 10:48 am
Sounds like my idea for a free, wireless, porn server is ‘needed’ more where you are than where I am 🙂
March 30th, 2005 at 11:54 am
Friend of mine went to law school and wound up as an ADA in Columbia, SC. One of his first cases was prosecuting an adult video store under a law similar to the on in Knoxville, only it basically said that selling porn couldn’t be the store’s primary purpose.
So, as a figleaf, the store had a rack of keychains, and claimed that selling keychains had been their primary business. It just happened to turn out that the good people of Columbia bought more porn than keychains.
During the trial my friend mocked them by saying, “So you want us to believe that you opened a store to sell THIS (and held up a keychain) and not THIS (and held up a double-headed dildo).” He won the case.
March 30th, 2005 at 12:55 pm
Even *I* already figured out a way around the law. Just sell enough non-porn merchandise to another store and have them sell it back to you for the same price. Voila! Lots of non-porm revenue to offset the porn sales.
My late father-in-law did this sort of thing to keep a commercial fishing license. The law just said how much fish you had to sell each year, not where it came from. He went to the wholesale fish market, bought $X of fish and then immediately sold it back for a little less than what he paid. The wholesaler gets some quick money, Dad keeps his license, and no fish actually changed hands.
March 31st, 2005 at 10:50 am
Amen Uncle. It’s always easy to find enough votes in a legislative body, be it Congress or county commisssion, to chip away at civil liberties in the name of “morality and values” (or “patriotism” for that matter, but that’s another story), especially when everyone thinks the loss of civil liberties only applies to the “bad guys” and not to them. Sadly though, it’s hard to find a legislator willing to make a stand against the tide of “popular” (or at least “vocal”) opinion and speak out in opposition of silly legislation like this. For all the talk from legislators at local, state, and federal level (particularly from the neo-cons) about personal responsibility and small government, I sure don’t see any evidence lawmakers have faith in those ideas beyond their value as campaign slogans.
June 27th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
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