LA wants to put porno police on hold for three months
And just when Los Angeles thought their porn problem was over. Despite holding three meetings on the matter, the LA County Council is asking for another 90 days to figure out how to enforce mandatory condom use in adult movies filmed there.
Los Angeles County lawmakers decided earlier this year to strike a measure off the voting block that would have let residents vote on a proposal to require male adult film actors to use protection during production — instead, county leaders approved the legislation on their own without letting voters have their say. The law was supposed to be added to the books back on March 5, but officials in LA County are still struggling to figure out a way to actually enforce the legislation nearly three months down the line.As it turns out, enforcing regulations in the sex industry is much harder than officials made it out to be.Los Angeles County’s chief administrative officer, Miguel Santana, has circulated a memo to his local lawmakers suggesting that maybe authorities aren’t all that ready to monitor the members of every male performer in the area, where the vast majority of the nation’s porn is produced. “Due to the complexities of this issue and the need to further address the implementation matters associated with this Ordinance, additional time is needed to complete the report,” CAO Santana writes to his colleagues. That isn’t to say, however, that they tried. Santana adds that the working group established to handle the recently-approved regulation adopted the law on January 17 and “expected to report to Council within 120.”In typical porno fashion, though, it is taking forever for the whole thing to actually come to fruition.“The Working Group held three meetings on March 2, April 18, and May 11, 2012 at the Office of the City Administrative Officer and reviewed the City's ability to implement and enforce the Ordinance. Due to the complexities of this issue and the need to further address the implementation matters associated with this Ordinance, additional time is needed to complete the report. Consequently, a 90 day extension is requested for this purpose,” writes Santana in a memo sent to both the mayor and council on May 16.In order to figure out how to go about policing the porn sets of Los Angeles County — one of the biggest metropolitan regions in the United States of America — authorities are now asking for a 90 day extension to try to tackle the problem.Although the law is actually on the books now, it isn’t the first time that lawmakers on the West Coast have tried to kick porn out of Los Angeles. Back in 2010 the topic was up for debate, only to be sidelined until earlier this year. At the time, however, opponents of the initiative said that policing the policy would be near impossible to accomplish.“They don't have a prayer of enforcing this against the industry,”Jeffrey J. Douglas of the Free Speech Coalitions told the LA Weekly in 2010.Following the passing of Los Angele’s condom law, the neighboring Ventura County town of Simi Valley approved a similar legislation this past April.
