Store pulls adult

videos

Palmer forbids distribution of obscene material

December 11, 2005

JOEL DAVIDSON\Frontiersman reporter

PALMER - Sexually explicit adult videos are no longer available at Pioneer Video in Palmer. Store owner Tyra Guard said she removed her entire adult selection Tuesday to comply with her understanding of a nearly 30-year-old Palmer city ordinance prohibiting the sale or distribution of obscene materials within the city limits.

&#8220We were not aware of the obscenity law before,” Guard said Wednesday morning. &#8220Ten years we've had this store and were completely unaware. I assumed adult videos were legal to carry, but we are not going to sit on the fence and break the law. We will not be renting or selling them anymore.”

The 1978 city code, however, is vague at best - banning obscene materials but failing to define exactly what is meant by the word &#8220obscene.”

Until city officials determine a clear definition, the other two remaining video rental stores in Palmer - Neighborhood Video and the new Movie Gallery - will continue renting and selling sexually explicit adult videos.

Movie Gallery is the second-largest video retail outlet in the U.S. Last month it opened a store in downtown Palmer with an extensive selection of adult videos for sale or rent.

Ted Innes, senior vice president chief marketing officer for the national chain, said Movie Gallery has about 700 stores nationwide that carry adult videos.

&#8220It is a community-by-community decision,” he explained Wednesday. &#8220The reason we included adult in that store in Palmer was because competitors there already carried it and that was a way to effectively compete with them.”

Before establishing stores in new communities, Innes said Movie Gallery sends people into potential locations to research what is legal to rent or sell there.

&#8220There are other video stores that carry adult videos there and our real-estate guys thought it was OK,” he said. &#8220We do whatever the local ordinances say and whatever the law allows. If someone wants to fight it, we will comply with the local laws.”

Locally owned Neighborhood Video has offered adult videos since the mid-1980s when the store first opened.

Owner Joann Frohling said she wasn't aware of the city's obscenity code, but said she would object to a ban on adult videos.

&#8220I would object to it because it is a part of our business,” she explained Thursday. &#8220It is a very small section, though, and we are very discreet about it.”

Unless the city clearly defines the code and enforces it across the board, Frohling said she would continue providing adult videos.

&#8220I'll accept the law if it is applied to all video stores,” she said, &#8220but not unless there is a law.”

Last week, the Palmer city council members, Mayor John Combs and City Manager Tom Healy admitted that the city's obscenity code was vague.

Healy said his office is in charge of enforcing city code but that he wasn't sure if the obscenity code, as written, was enforceable. &#8220As old as this ordinance is, there is significant issues to make sure it is enforceable,” he said.

The United States has a long history in the often-contentious effort to define what is obscene and what is communally acceptable.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a landmark 1973 case, Miller v. California, that the First Amendment does not protect obscene works.

The court established a three-pronged test to determine if a work is obscene.

To be obscene, a judge or jury must determine that the average person applying community standards would find the work as a whole to appeal to prurient or inordinate sexual interests, that the work depicts sexual conduct in offensive ways as measured by contemporary community standards and that a reasonable person would find the work as a whole to lack serious literary, artistic, political and scientific value.

Alaska, one of 10 states that do not enforce statewide obscenity laws, allows individual communities to determine their own standards.

Contact Joel Davidson at 352-2266 or joel.davidson@

frontiersman.com.