Wednesday, Jul 4, 2012    Text size: 

LOS ANGELES -- Los Angeles County voters will decide whether adult performers should be required to wear condoms during shoots.

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation's initiative to mandate condoms on porn shoots within county lines has received enough signatures to qualify for the November election, a county official said.

Michael Weinstein of the AHF said his group collected 371,000 signatures in five months, far exceeding the 232,000 signatures needed to qualify the measure for the ballot.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors must take the final step of placing the measure on the ballot, slated tentatively for November.

If approved by voters, the measure will require adult film producers to pay a fee and obtain a permit from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.

Performers will be mandated to use condoms for acts of anal and vaginal sex.

L.A. County officials, if voters approve, will have the authority to suspend or revoke the permit for violations, and could follow up with $1,000 civil fines or misdemeanor criminal charges.

The ballot measure would mandate porn movie producers to get health permits, just as owners of tattoo parlors, massage parlors and bathhouses do.  

The requirement would apply to shoots in unincorporated areas of the county and 85 of its 88 cities, including the city of Los Angeles.

The AHF began circulating petitions in December asking Los Angeles County voters to require porn performers to wear condoms during filming.  

Los Angeles County covers some 4,000 square miles and is home to over a quarter of all California residents, including the city of Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley, also known as Porn Valley.

The city of Los Angeles already has a porn condom ordinance, but it continues to be sidelined until the first week of September at the earliest because city leaders haven't yet drawn up formal plans to implement the law.