HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — The AIDS Healthcare Foundation this afternoon blasted Los Angeles County officials for their decision to not defend a legal challenge to Measure B, the Los Angeles County Safer Sex in the Adult Film Industry Act.
AHF president Michael Weinstein, who has championed in support of Measure B for several years now, called on the county to enforce the law, which officially is on the books.
"Despite Judge Pregerson's ruling that the condom requirement is, in fact, constitutional, county officials are now cherry picking which laws to enforce," Weinstein said in a press release. "This should be a huge embarrassment to the county, but as we've seen before, with little to no little accountability, they have no shame whatsoever.
"It is a sad day when Dr. Jonathan Fielding and other L.A. County bureaucrats are unwilling or unable to defend a fairly straightforward law protecting the health and safety of adult film performers working in the industry in Los Angeles County," he said.
Weinstein said that private counsel tapped by Los Angeles County Supervisors informed the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the county has chosen " ... not to file an answering brief ... due on Oct. 18," in the appellate case.
The 9th Circuit's court clerk ordered answering briefs from defendants by Oct. 18 after Vivid filed a motion to dismiss the intervenor in the case — the AHF — from a preliminary injunction appeal.
County supervisors previously declined to defend Measure B citing legal challenges by Vivid Entertainment to the constitutionality of the law on First Amendment grounds, but, in August, U.S. District Judge Dean Pregerson ruled that Measure B's condom requirement for adult film productions was constitutional.
Vivid and co-plaintiffs Kayden Kross and Logan Pierce filed their suit in January at U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, seeking to topple Measure B, which was approved by voters in November. The AHF was the sole sponsor of Measure B.
