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RUDY THE XXX-TERMINATOR
Tuesday,March 27,2001
By ROBERT HARDT Jr.


‘GAME' FOR ANYTHING?
This shop on Eighth Avenue boasts of video games and pool in its upper windows, but the ground floor is a different story - and it's a story Hizzoner wants to end.
- Sam Costanza

Mayor Giuliani yesterday declared war - again - on more than 100 sex shops, trying for a second time to shutter strip clubs and porn theaters, while slapping stricter rules on X-rated video and bookstores.
Giuliani unveiled a get-tough amendment to his sex-shop zoning law that would effectively eliminate or curtail 101 of the city's 136 sex businesses.

It would close 36 topless clubs and 36 adult movie houses - many in Manhattan - that have been able to keep operating for the past three years under a special rule.

The crackdown also would affect 29 video and book stores, forcing them to wall off areas where they sell sex materials to ensure customers are not exposed to an X-rated eyeful of products when they walk into the store.

"The law has been successful but it's run into a problem," Giuliani said.

"Sex shops can no longer evade our system of regulation through sham compliance.

"Since we started, we've reduced the number of adult establishments dramatically, but we have 51 new ones that have developed and of those, 26 are in impermissible locations."

The mayor's proposal would close a "loophole" used by strip bars and porn theaters and also would give city zoning inspectors more leeway in deciding whether a sex business was out of compliance.

While the number of adult businesses has declined dramatically in Manhattan over the past eight years - from 107 to 69 - it has stayed almost the same in the outer boroughs, where there are 67.

Only 21 strip clubs, eight theaters and six bookstores -- which are zoned in nonresidential areas - would be allowed to remain open under the mayor's plan.

"We're at war again," said Herald Price Fahringer, a lawyer for more than 100 sexually explicit businesses.

Under the so-called "60-40" rule, adult video and book stores in residential areas may remain open if 60 percent or more if their products are not X-rated.

Giuliani is going after the strip clubs and porn theaters that have interpreted the rule by dedicating 40 percent or less of their floor space to go-go dancing or sex products.

The mayor and Planning Commissioner Joe Rose would prohibit the 60-40 rule from being used by strip bars. Rose said 36 theaters that feature either live or videotaped entertainment, such as peep booths, also would have to be closed under the amendment.

Giuliani's proposals also would allow inspectors to consider factors other than the 40 percent rule while deciding whether to close the shops and clubs. The criteria would include taking into account the prominence of the display of sex-related items.

Several sex stores have given little more than lip service to the 60-40 rule, stocking dusty shelves with old kung fu movies and instructional videos in order to comply with the law.

The city has lost twice in the state Court of Appeals in decisions that upheld the 60-40 rule.

Giuliani will again face strong opposition from Fahringer's coalition should the amendment become law.

"The state Court of Appeals has held that nude dancing is constitutionally protected, so to simply ban it in most places is preposterous," Fahringer said.

"As usual, the mayor is not concerned with the First Amendment, and that's sad."

All four of the Democratic mayoral candidates said they supported the mayor's plan.

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We'll roll on with our heads held high
Our conscience in the gutter
Our dreams up in the sky
---The Living End

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Let's bring back all the crime while we're at it.

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