Monday, November 29, 1999
Flynt keeps coming back to Tristate
BY DAN HORN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
It didn't take Larry Flynt long to learn his way around a courtroom.
Since his earliest days in Cincinnati, the Hustler magazine publisher has been the target of lawsuits, grand jury indictments, zoning battles and just about anything else the local establishment could throw at him.
In almost every case, the goal was to send Mr. Flynt a message: “We don't want you here.”
Mr. Flynt keeps coming back.
His long and tumultuous relationship with Cincinnati is a case study in how communities battle pornographers.
The first showdown came in the mid-1970s, when then-Prosecutor Simon L. Leis Jr. took on the go-go clubs and bookstores in downtown Cincinnati.
His biggest target was Mr. Flynt, who owned the Hustler club and published one of the most explicit magazines of the day.
A grand jury indicted Mr. Flynt on obscenity charges, and Mr. Leis won a conviction.
The verdict was thrown out on appeal, and the case was dropped when Mr. Flynt agreed to stop selling Hustler in Cincinnati.
The deal died 20 years later when Mr. Flynt opened his Hustler store on Sixth Street in 1997.
Adult videos sold there provoked another obscenity indictment but that case ended when the store corporation pleaded guilty to two charges and agreed to stop selling the videos.
Because he keeps coming back, city officials decided to regulate adult businesses by limiting the areas in which they could locate.
Mr. Flynt's brother, Jimmy, and two store employees were charged with violating the ordinance this month.
City prosecutors say the Flynts failed to get a license for their adult business. The Flynts' attorneys say no license is needed because the majority of the material they sell is not sexually explicit.
At the moment, however, they aren't selling any material. A dispute with their landlord has forced the Flynts to close the store until the issue is resolved in court or they find a new location.
For now, he has turned his attention north to Monroe, where he plans to build a $1 million adult entertainment store next to Bristol's Show Club and Revue.
The store, which would feature both explicit adult videos and nonsexually oriented goods such as clothing and general books, has local officials lining up to try to block its construction along Interstate 75.
Meanwhile, Larry Flynt says, he'll be back in Cincinnati with a store of some kind.
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