According to CCV President Phil Burress, the goal of the mail campaign is to educate the community regarding the group’s efforts to rid the area of pornography.
“Right now we’re focusing on community education efforts,” Burress said. “We’re not focusing on law enforcement issues just yet.”
The campaign, which Burress describes as “reclaiming Butler County for the family,” calls for residents to boycott stores that sell adult materials and hotels that offer guests pay-per-view adult content on their in-room entertainment channels.
So far, the community response to the campaign has been quite positive, Burress said.
“What’s been the most surprising to those we’ve heard from is the fact that they had no idea we had so many hotels distributing pornographic materials,” Burress said.
Burress said he plans to follow-up the education phase of his group’s campaign with boycotts targeting specific hotels.
The letter includes a list of convenience stores, hotels and video stores CCV is urging people to boycott along with a list of “clean” hotels and motels in Butler County that do not deal in adult content.
According to the CCV website, which identifies the group as officially associated with Focus on the Family, the group has been successful in applying pressure to hotels in parts of Ohio and Kentucky to discontinue the sale of in-room adult movies. The CCV site lists a Cincinnati-area Marriott as the most recent hotel to change its policy.
The Cincinnati North pulled the plug on adult movies in 2003, according to a report in the Cincinnati Enquirer. In that article, staff writer Michael Clark characterized the decision to discontinue adult movies as being motivated by a two-pronged attack, with CCV encouraging community members to complain and Butler County Prosecutor Robin Piper threatening legal action.
At the time, Piper informed Marriott attorney William O’Brien that failure to remove adult content from the hotel could have “criminal and civil ramifications.”
In opinion piece in the CCV newsletter, the Citizens’ Courier, Burress identifies On Command and LodgeNet, two companies that provide adult PPV entertainment to hotels, as ripe for federal prosecution.
“Former federal prosecutors tell me that On Command and LodgeNet could be, and should be, prosecuted by the DOJ,” Burress said.