April 25--Now it's official: Simi Valley to porn industry -- stay out.
After three months of back and forth, the City Council on Monday night adopted an ordinance aimed at discouraging porn studios from making videos in the city.
As a condition of obtaining a shooting permit from the city, the ordinance requires porn producers to ensure actors wear condoms during sexual penetration. Actors and actresses must use dental dams -- which affix to the mouth -- during oral sex.
Porn studios oppose condoms and dental dams in their productions, saying viewers are turned off by them.
Mayor Bob Huber called for the ordinance after the Los Angeles City Council approved a similar measure Jan. 17 to protect porn performers from contracting HIV. The Los Angeles law prompted speculation that porn studios in the San Fernando Valley area of the city -- where most of the nation's adult fare is made -- might start shooting in nearby communities such as Simi Valley so they could make videos without condoms.
"We're not going to accept the pornographic purveyors from Los Angeles County," Huber said at the time. "This is a family-oriented town, and we're going to rise up and keep them out of our city, whatever it (lawfully) takes."
The Simi Valley ordinance, which states that its official purpose is to minimize the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, takes effect 31 days after its adoption.
The measure is less burdensome on porn makers than an earlier version.
As previously worded, the ordinance would have required porn producers to have a health care professional on the set to observe whether the actors wear condoms. The producer would have had to submit a notarized affidavit by the health care professional to the city stating the actors complied. Police would then have reviewed the video's unedited footage to make sure condoms were used.
Those requirements were dropped from the final version of the ordinance. Interim City Attorney Marjorie Baxter said Tuesday the city felt the measure was strong enough without them.
The ordinance requires a porn maker, if requested by the city, to let the city review footage or inspect the set to make sure condoms are being worn. The city's Administrative Services Department, not the Police Department, will handle those duties.
Diane Duke, executive director of the Free Speech Coalition, the porn industry's primary trade association, has ridiculed the measure as "political posturing," saying she doubts there are porn productions in Simi Valley.
Of 59 filming permits the city issued in 2011, apparently only one was for a porn video, according to Environmental Services Director Peter Lyons.
At the council's March 26 meeting, council members Glen Becerra and Steve Sojka also characterized Huber's proposed ordinance as a "purely political" measure.
Huber shot back: "Either you're for keeping pornography people out of town, or you're not."
The ordinance was set to be adopted that night but was held up at the last minute when Becerra and Sojka said porn studios would be exempt from the rules if they made their videos at commercial facilities that were operated principally for filming.
The council directed Baxter to eliminate that exemption in time for the measure to be reintroduced at the council's April 9 meeting.
Noncommercial erotic videos shot by adults in their homes are exempt.
Copyright 2012 - Ventura County Star, Calif.
