Cincinnati's new porn emporium is right next door to the Sixth Street McDonald's where high school students hang out, waiting for school buses. Hustler is conveniently located in the new Back Stage area that was dressed up to bring suburban families downtown for plays, concerts, art museums and classy restaurants.
Go to a musical, treat the kids to dinner - and then take the family to Larry Flynt's new store to browse through Beach Girls, Up the Skirt and Honeybuns.
There's a rack of Superman comics for the kids. Archie is there, too, but don't tell Veronica. And while Dad is thumbing through skin-magazine mutations that multiply like venereal diseases, Mom can page through Family Circle's cover story on knitting. No kidding.
The Minivan family will have to walk past displays of anatomically wishful devices that are lurid enough to make jaded adult imaginations cringe. But where else can shoppers find borderline child porn like Barely Legal just a rack away from Good Housekeeping?
I was surprised to find that 15 racks of hygienic, dentist-office magazines outnumbered seven racks of hard-core, X-rated, rank, raw smut that was shockingly pornographic, with emphasis on the graphic.
So I asked the clerk, a woman with a sparkling gemstone in her nose, ''Do you sell a lot of Ladies Home Journals?''
''Shuuure,'' she replied with a wise wink in her voice.
If you think Cincinnati should just leave Larry Flynt alone and he will finally give up and go away, replay that answer, soaked in sarcasm: ''Shuuure.''
If you are confused that it's a First Amendment issue - live and let live, it's not really obscene: ''Shuuure.''
If you think other adult book stores won't follow Hustler and infect Cincinnati with sin strips like other decaying downtowns: ''Shuuure.''
Larry Flynt is here to stay. He's going to stick to Cincinnati like a skin condition until he forces the city that ran him out of town to try it again or surrender. His erotic fantasy is a circus trial on Court TV, starring himself with a cast of celebrity lawyers in a made-for-media sequel to Marv Albert. You can almost see it on CNN: ''The People of Cincinnati vs. Larry Flynt - the Rematch.''
I finally got tired of hearing people tell me, ''You should see what he's selling there!'' So I stopped by to take a look.
The first thing I noticed was brighter lighting in the grungy old King's News shop. It's no improvement. It could be the first time bright lights brought creepy vermin out of the woodwork.
Mr. Flynt and the hundreds who lined up for his autograph on opening day were gone. There were just five or seven Jugheads who were not looking for Archie. They were burning their ''10-minute browsing limit'' on magazines that sound like old strippers: Voluptuous. Busty.
The clerks were getting ready for remodeling. They said they would apply fresh paint and a replace the paper banner over the front door with a permanent sign.
A permanent sign of things to come - unless Cincinnati draws a line in the street again and turns out the lights.
There are three ways, according to Steve Tolbert, the Hamilton County Prosecutor's expert on obscenity:
The worst way to go is criminal prosecution for pandering obscenity. The county sheriff or prosecutor could take the December 1997 issue of Hustler to a grand jury or judge, get ''probable cause'' for an arrest, bust Mr. Flynt and take him to court. But even if a jury finds that magazine issue obscene, conviction is only a fifth-degree felony, the lowest in Ohio. The maximum sentence is a $2,500 fine and 12 months in jail, with jail time very unlikely, Mr. Tolbert said. ''It's a new battle with every magazine that comes out. The next one could be 10 times worse, but a totally different judge and jury could find it not obscene.''
To Mr. Flynt, a $2,500 fine is a steal for so much national publicity.
The city could file a civil suit to close the store as a nuisance, based on secondary harmful effects of obscenity. ''The Supreme Court has dealt with the issue and says you can close such a store based on increasing crime and decreasing property values,'' Mr. Tolbert said. ''You don't have to wait for it to happen, you can consider the proven harmful effects in other communities.''
The best choice: city zoning and licensing regulations restrict stores with ''substantial or significant'' pornography.
''He doesn't have a license, period,'' said Councilman Phil Heimlich, who hopes to exile the Hustler store to a costly, red-taped, licensed adult zone, near medium or heavy industry, at least 100 feet from schools, churches, homes and liquor sales. ''There is no free-speech issue. We're not saying he can't sell these magazines. We're just saying you have to sell them in a place where harmful secondary effects are reduced.''
The ''substantial or significant'' definition explains all those comic books and family magazines. ''It's a front,'' Mr. Tolbert said. But the court test is sales, not inventory, he said.
''People aren't going in there to buy Good Housekeeping,'' said Prosecutor Joseph Deters. ''We're not talking about legitimate theater or art. This is a dirty bookstore.''
Mr. Deters hopes criminal prosecution is a last resort. ''Obscenity is illegal, but it's not like selling drugs, you can't just go arrest them. The only way is to have it defined by a judge and jury. 'I don't like it' is not the standard.''
Mr. Heimlich met with the city manager, solicitor and safety director on Thursday to discuss zoning ordinance he sponsored. ''I'm satisfied that they are aggressively investigating and enforcing this,'' he said.
That could mean a showdown soon - if Cincinnati still has the backbone for a bitter battle over bogus free-speech claims and scorn for being ''Censornatti,'' the ''Prude City.''
''We are willing to draw the line,'' Mr. Deters says. ''As a community is desensitized by HBO and cable, that changes over time. But except for the most ardent, hard-core nut, everyone agrees we want lines drawn.''
His example: Ask any group if pornography that exploits children should be outlawed, and it's a unanimous ''yes.'' Ask if pornography featuring bestiality should be outlawed, and it's ''yes'' again. ''If you say yes to the second question, that's the December 1997 issue of Hustler,'' Mr. Deters said.
It's time to define deviancy downtown and tell Larry Flynt he picked the wrong location: Cincinnati.
Peter Bronson is editorial page editor of The Enquirer. If you have questions or comments, call 768-8301, or write to 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.
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