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Unfortunately for Zone d’Erotica, it can’t use its
flavored condoms to protect itself from the power of the Westwood
Homeowners Association, who gag at the thought of a sex shop being
forced down their throats.
Laws enacted by the Los Angeles City Council in 1984 state an
adult shop cannot operate fewer than 500 feet from a residential
area ““ these sex toy specialists are just 375 feet from the
Gayley Terrace apartment complex.
But everyone knows most of the Gayley Terrace residents and
their immediate neighbors are not the ones likely to be offended by
the kink-cultivating merchants. Populated by
not-long-removed-ex-teenagers undoubtedly interested in exploring
sexuality, the basin of the Westwood student apartment region will
hardly protest the Kama Sutra books and Wicked Enterprises videos
Zone d’Erotica owners Bambi Hall and John Coil want to sell
them.
Instead, the heads of the same Westwood Homeowners Associations
who have denied students dancing and big-screen TVs by getting the
L.A. City Council to ban these as well will be the ones denouncing
Zone d’Erotica as inappropriate business.
The problem with defining what is inappropriate lies in choosing
whose values are worth more. Many people find Biblical or otherwise
religious paraphernalia offensive to their beliefs. Would the same
effort be made to keep out a Christian bookstore from the Westwood
community? Not likely.
But aside from this harrowing act of social censorship, a larger
issue of economic freedom is at stake. Government officials
don’t have the right to decide, as City Council member Jack
Weiss so aptly said in reference to Zone d’Erotica, what
businesses “fit” into a community. Members of the
community can decide for themselves when they choose to support a
store with their patronage. If people don’t want dildos in
Westwood, they won’t buy them. But those who do want them
should not have their right blocked by a city council. Since all
consumers have the freedom to choose whether or not to buy a
product, it follows that stores can sell any legal products,
regardless of their nature. Stores the overall community
doesn’t approve of will go out of business.
The problems Zone d’Erotica will likely face are not
original; it exemplifies the unwarranted control the L.A. City
Council has in determining the composition of cities and
neighborhoods. While the Council does have a responsibility to act
in the interest of the city, it doesn’t have a blank check
from all community members to stifle business and expression
rights, like they did with Mike McNeilly.
McNeilly creates the giant images displayed on the Westwood
Medical Building on the corner of Wilshire Blvd. and Gayley Ave.
Even though the building’s owner allows McNeilly to display
his art, the city insists on prosecuting him based on laws
prohibiting the display of supergraphics in the area. Opposing
someone’s freedom of expression, even when it is with the
consent of the owners of the property where it is displayed, sounds
less democratic than it does totalitarian and elitist.
The L.A. City Council, and especially Weiss, who represents the
Westwood area, must work toward overturning oppressive zoning laws,
thinking more about individual liberty and steering homeowners from
acting less like moralistic watchdogs guarding against the
breaching of no one else’ morals but their own.
In turn, students should take a more active role in Westwood
politics either by registering to vote here instead of in their
home towns, or by contacting Weiss and the city council, letting
them know bridging constitutional rights will not be tolerated.
Protect your constitutional rights ““ and yourself.