Sunday, May 07, 2000

Pornography battle shifts

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Cities try containment

By Michael D. Clark
and Janet C. Wetzel
The Cincinnati Enquirer

        MONROE — With the groundbreaking for Larry Flynt's Hustler store, the Tristate's battle over pornography might have all-but-officially shifted to a new legal front of zoning for containment rather than banishment.

Larry Flynt at the groundbreaking for his Hustler store in Monroe. (Michael Snyder photo) | ZOOM |

        Despite legal maneuvering, public outcry and vows to keep Mr. Flynt's adult-oriented store out of Butler County, the self-proclaimed pornographer proclaimed victory last week.

        “We're here to stay,” Mr. Flynt said Thursday after wielding a gilt shovel to break ground for the store.

        In just eight months, the adult store rapidly advanced from a scandalous rumor to the Tristate's most visible pornography-related fight. By July 4 the $1 million Hustler “super store” is expected to open its doors as an officially approved retailer within the city of Monroe.

        Attorneys for Mr. Flynt and his brother Jimmy Flynt smoothly navigated Monroe's zoning process, which like a growing number locally and around the nation, has evolved into controls designed to only restrict sexually oriented businesses, not prohibit them.

        While Mr. Flynt, who continues his decades-long challenge to Hamilton County and Cincinnati officials with his adult ventures, claims victory, anti-pornography opponents are reluctant to concede a total defeat. They claim growing public support for their cause and a re newed determination to fight the spread of adult entertainment ventures in Monroe.

        But the Hustler magazine publisher dismissed the months of public meetings, protests and prayer rallies in this small community of 7,000 on the border of Butler and Warren counties.

        “They'll get over it,” Mr. Flynt said.

        Though Mr. Flynt fired the first shot in November, with the surprise purchase of a $300,000 retail lot just off Ohio 63, next to Interstate 75, in many ways the outcome was decided in 1995.

        At that time, in the wake of the opening of the adult Bristol's Show Club and Revue in a lot next to the current Hustler site, Monroe city officials hastily passed zoning laws that restricted sexually oriented businesses.

        City officials were advised by attorneys that such adult entertainment businesses could be controlled only by zoning that restricts them, not by laws that ban them.

        The Flynts and their attorneys have said the Hustler store, which they say is a prototype for a chain of similar stores they plan to open nationwide, is not a sexually oriented business. They say adult materials, such as X-rated videos and publications, will not make up a “significant or substantial” portion of their stock in trade. They said the ratio of non-adult to adult items is 3-to-2.

        Unless they violate those zoning provisions, the Flynts are unlikely to face penalties under Monroe ordinances.

        “If (Larry Flynt) exceeds the zoning standards and we feel he's out of line, then we'll shut him down,” Monroe Mayor Elbert Tannreuther said.

        Though he was all smiles at the store's groundbreaking, Jimmy Flynt bristled privately at having his store's inventory determined by law.

        “I think that is infringing upon our constitutional freedoms. The zoning laws are there to please the puritans of our society. But I can work with a 60-40 split,” Jimmy Flynt said.

        The Rev. Terry Ball, pastor of the First Church of God in Monroe and a member of the Monroe Ministerial Association, which hoped to derail the Hustler project, said opponents are disappointed.

        “It's an affront to our entire community,” the Rev. Mr. Ball said. “We plan to make sure he sticks to the letter of the law. We'll be here long after Larry Flynt is gone. We believe that at some point both Bristol's and Hustler will no longer be here.”

        The fight in Monroe is a preview of battles across the United States, said Ohio State University law professor David Goldberger, who is the former legal and legislative director of the Illinois division of the American Civil Liberties Union.

        “I'd be surprised if you don't see it everywhere in the country where you have a resonably high concentration of residences,” Mr. Goldberger said. “Once the existing zoning restrictions allow these businesses in you can't retroactively change the zoning laws.”

        Mr. Goldberger said the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that because of the possibilities of “secondary effects” of sexually oriented businesses — such as increased crime and prostitution — communities can legally use zoning laws to restrict them to non-residential areas.

        Despite Monroe's restrictive zoning, inventory limits and the vigorous protests of hundreds of residents, city officials were warned by their law director that they had no choice but to grant Mr. Flynt a site-plan approval or open themselves up to expensive and likely unsuccessful litigation.

        “We don't want to bankrupt this community” with legal fees, Mr. Tannreuther said.

        Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values, joined in fighting the Hustler store in Monroe, as well as elsewhere in the Tristate.

        Despite Mr. Flynt's speedy and relatively obstacle-free entry into Butler County, Mr. Burress chalks up the Monroe fight as a win.

        Mr. Burress said Monroe's zoning laws worked because they have altered and restricted Mr. Flynt's operation.

        “The zoning laws are absolutely wonderful and I'm very pleased with the way Monroe officials handled this. The laws made him (Mr. Flynt) acquiesce to our city and our demands,” said Mr. Burress, whose Sharonville-based anti-pornography group has long opposed any form of adult entertainment in the area.

        Mr. Tannreuther predicted that another Hustler battle may come if the Flynts tip their inventory percentage too far toward sexually oriented items. Otherwise, he said, “there is no legal way to stop them.”

        “We'll monitor it and if they don't have a preponderance of stock and trade that's sexually oriented, by law they're allowed to stay in business. But if they do have a preponderance, then we'd have to try to shut them down,” Mr. Tannreuther said.

        “It's a game, but we're in for the long haul.”        

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