2005/06/15 Council Agenda Packet

Consultants' Final Report - Page 7 II. Legal Requirements For Controlling Adult Businesses The Iegal control and regulation of pornography in general and "adult entertainment" businesses specifically has a long and controversial history. The 1970 Commission on Obscenity and Pornography overwhelmingly voted to eliminate all legal restrictions on use by consenting adults of sexually explicit books, magazines, pictures, and films.' While President Nixon, who appointed the Commission, was not pleased with the findings, they were consistent with the general liberal view that pornography should be tolerated as a matter of individual choice and taste unless it directly harms others.'- The Williams Committee in England supported a similar position in 1979.' Alternatively, the 1986 Attorney General's Commission on Pornography called for a more aggressive enforcement of obscenity Iaws and regulation of pornography that it deemed harmful even if not legally obscene.; The current Judicial doctrinal standard that governs the difficult balance of constitutionally protected free speech and the direct regulation of pornography, is ' Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography (Bantam Books, 1970- ' See D.A. Downs, The New Politics of Pornography (University of Chicago Press 1989). ' See W.A. Simpson, Pornographly and Politics: Report of the Home Office (Waterlow Publishers, 1983)_ 'Attorney General's Commission on Pornography, Final Report (U.S. Department of Justice, 1986). EVER00347