DALLAS — A week after a federal appeals court sided with Exxxotica’s organizers and allowed its lawsuit to continue against the city of Dallas, the Dallas Morning News has published an editorial advising city leaders to settle the suit.
Last week the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that a federal judge improperly dismissed Exxxotica’s free speech case filed after Dallas banned the show from a city-owned convention center.
Exxxotica’s operators sued Dallas in February 2016, claiming the city violated its First Amendment rights by adopting a resolution banning the adult entertainment fan show as an impermissible use of a public facility under city code.
Exxxotica holds fan shows throughout metropolises across the U.S., including Denver, Chicago and Miami. Its Edison, N.J., show begins tomorrow and runs through Sunday.
Exxxotica’s Dallas show in 2015 drew protests from city officials and church leaders on moral grounds.
Although Dallas' city attorneys office at the time told its city council that banning Exxxotica 2016 might be unconstitutional, city leaders passed a resolution directing the city manager to reject a contract with Exxxotica for the lease of the Dallas Convention Center.
A federal judge dismissed the suit against the city on a technicality — the convention organizer lacked standing. The judge ruled Exotica Dallas – a subsidiary “ownership entity” of Exxxotica’s corporate parent, Three Expo — contracted with the city for the 2015 show and Three Expo hadn’t shown the resolution would stop the 2016 festival from happening.
The 5th Circuit, however, ruled that Exxxotica’s corporate parent established the elements required for standing on each of its claims, including a violation of its rights of freedom of speech, equal protection and freedom from bill of attainder.
“It is undisputed that because of Three Expo’s inability to stage Exxxotica 2016 as planned, it suffered economic damages in loss of revenues from the convention, causing it to lose net profits and defrayal of the cost of advance publicity and other expenses,” an appeals panel wrote in its ruling that effectively sends the case back to the lower court.
In the Dallas Morning News, the paper’s editorial board said that Dallas should settle this suit, “then it should take itself out of the event-planning business altogether.”
“Why not set some simple guidelines for using the convention center — rules that can be evenly enforced — and then turn over the business of actually making the booking decisions to a private firm that would be less sensitive to political influence, no matter how well-intended?” the paper asked. “That won't stop people from rightly objecting to conventions they oppose, but it will get the city largely out of a business it shouldn't be in.”
In the editorial, the paper said that two years ago it urged Dallas to “quit fooling around” and allow Exxxotica to rent the space it needed from the convention center.
However, “city officials, including the mayor, had already concluded in 2015 that there was no legal way to tell the convention to go away, given that organizers had followed the rules set out for renting space at the city’s premier site for large industry gatherings.”
Exxxotica’s organizers predictably filed a challenge in federal court on First Amendment grounds, and now the case is back where it started.
The editorial said that city leaders might want to reconsider their role in the event-hosting business.
“It’s hard to argue that a local government should be in the business of deciding what content should and shouldn't be allowed at the convention center, [but] once you open the doors to hosting events, you may get events you don’t like,” the paper said. “That’s a problem for the politicians at City Hall, who have to be responsive to residents' concerns across a spectrum.”
The paper warned of attorneys’ fees likely to be awarded to Exxxotica if the case continues in the courtroom.
“Now the city is back on the hook for mounting legal bills, something its attorneys surely knew was coming despite the brief reprieve from a lower court,” the paper said. “Dallas ought to stop this fight now and seek to settle the case, even if that means letting the porn convention take place.”
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings declined comment to XBIZ on the city’s next steps in the case, including whether it will settle the case with Exxxotica.
