Do You Have A Legal Right To A Swing Party?
The town of Duncanville, Texas that is outscirts of Dallas has been involved in its own little Jerry Falwell style bible belt combat with the owners of a private ”adult party club” named “The Cherry Pit“. The Cherry Pit is a private landed property tucked in away in an upscale Duncanville residential community. The Cherry Pit announces on the web and according to advertised news invites as many as 160 visitors to a weekly gathering.
The Cherry Pit has been throwing private parties where couples pay a charge for entrance and are allowed engage in almost any sort of sex deeds they want on the site. It is the position of the hosts that this does not constitute a “business” as the entrance money is to cover the expence of food, beverages etc and not a charge for the opportunity of engaging in sex from the tame to the “Pulp Fiction” apple in the mouth brand of entertainment…. It is rumored for an extra service fee they could even “bring out the gimp“….(just kidding)
The entire thing started backin November of 2007 when after several years of Cherry Pitt neighbors complaining about the crime, noisy visitors and “unsavory element” “the pit” was bringing to the district, the City of Duncanville passed the next ordinance:
“the operation and maintenance of a adult to be unlawful and a public nuisance. Violation of the new ordinance can result in a fine of up to $3,000.”
The city of Duncanville after that decided that the parties at the Cherry Pit were more than just a gathering of “friends and family” looking for some enjoyment and resoluted that it was Really a sexually oriented commerce and subject to the regulation. The reply of Julie Norris, one of the founders of “The Pit” was as follows:
“I don’t know what their classification of a industry is, but to my understanding a business is public – anyone can just walk into it and you should pay to get in and we are none of that,” Norris said. “I accept donations. Have you ever had your buddies over for a booze and asked everybody to pitch in $10 or bring a dish? That is exactly what we do. The only condition to get into my house is that a person call and let me know that you are coming and you are on my reservation list.”
Ms Norris went on to state that she assumed that the ordinance is a excuse to harass their way of life and beliefs and that the ordinance regulating the club violated their First Amendment Rights to Privacy.
“It boils down to people want to put their morality into my personal dwelling and I will stand against that,” Norris said. “That is not what the Constitution allows.”
The owners of the Cherry Pit after that counter sued the city claiming the decree banning adult clubs violates their confidentiality and due process rights. They are mostly using the same argument under which a right to privacy was found under Roe v. Wade. They have to use this manner in making the right to privacy argument because there is basically no right to personal privacy spelled out in the Constitution.
The Cherry Pit’s legal representative, Edward Klein, said the city is trying to regulate private acts in a private dwelling using the public irritation law as a “pretext” to do so….
The Cherry Pitt has stayed open while all the official backbiting has taken place… Just today the City of Duncanville broadened the ordinance designed to shut the club down by making the explanation of a sex club more common and add a local appeal process for sex clubs that the town orders to shut down.
***October 29, 2008 A jury proclaimed the owners of the Cherry Pit accountable of illegally operating a sexually oriented industry.
So what do you think? Should private citizens be permitted to “swap pits” at the Pitt without the government getting its’ rocks off?
You obviously can’t do drugs in the confidentiality of your home. These things are illegal regardless of where they are engaged in.
Let us as well keep this in mind. Duncanville is NOT trying to regulate the Texas adult dating personals showing up at the place. They are trying to order the founders of the club in allowing the “Piters” to engage in sex for a fee at their home…. The government is NOT regulating where and with whom you can have sex with. They are telling the owners of the Pit that if they are charging you to do it, they are subject to government punishment. There is a huge dissimilarity…
No one is going to advice you that you cant go down to your local red light block and get a blowjob from Kathie the local crack addict or Billy the cross dressing pimp or even take any of parejas swinger to the Cherry Pit for some entertainment. We of course are aware of nonetheless that the act of handing over a dollar in trade for the BJ makes the otherwise agreeable action illegal prostitution on one end and the illegal operation of soliciting a prostitute on the other end no matter where it occurs (in addition to whatever other grose doing goes with “the other end”). The state has decided that there is a forceful state awareness to control and/or criminalize such acts…
***October 29, 2008 A jury found the owner of the Cherry Pit guilty on 10 counts of running a sexually oriented business. The Cherry Pit has since been closed. While advice for the owners stated that the conclusion would be appealed and the statute challenged, it is uncertain if either of those was ever pursued.
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