REPEAL OF ANTI-SMUT RULE MAY ENCOURAGE 'PORN BARS'.

Byline: Dana Bartholomew Staff Writer

``Monday Night Football'' at local bars could soon be replaced by Monday night porn under a pending rule change by state saloon regulators to cease policing public smut.

A federal court decision has prodded the state Alcoholic Beverage Control agency to seriously consider revoking a 30-year ban on sexually explicit materials where booze is sold.

Repeal of the anti-smut regulation could take place as early as July, ABC officials say. Less clear is how the rule change would affect Los Angeles and other cities with laws that limit X-rated businesses.

``The (U.S.) Supreme Court can't even define obscenity,'' said Matthew D. Botting, chief counsel for the ABC. ``So we're not in the position to be morality police and decide what is obscene and what is not.''

While some say a repeal will encourage ``porn bars'' to proliferate in communities throughout the state, others say local X-rated ordinances backed by state alcohol regulators are enough to control the practice.

Joe Shea, a Hollywood activist disturbed over the number of topless bars and adult book stores that have proliferated in his neighborhood, is outraged at the likely repeal of the ABC prohibition known as Article 1, Section 143.4.

Sex sells, he said. And bar owners seeking to buttress their bottom lines will be tempted to plug in pornographic videos or switch on cable TV sex channels to titillate new business.

A succession of big-screen porn bars will not only degrade public speech, Shea maintains, but lead to greater violence against women.

``It's an unhealthy kind of competition and one more element in the slow decay of our society,'' said Shea, editor of The American Reporter, an online daily, and president of the Ivar Hill Community Association of Hollywood.

``And police won't be able to do much about it.''

Flashback to 1996, when a swingers organization engaged in what some say was an orgy in a San Diego hotel ballroom. When ABC investigators took action against the hotel for permitting booze and sex, the group known as Lifestyle Organization (LSO) staged an erotic art show the next year at a Palm Springs convention center.

What followed was a lengthy court battle brought by the LSO and the American Civil Liberties Union for threats made to revoke the center's liquor license.

A 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judge ruled the ABC anti-smut regulation unconstitutional last year for banning erotic art, protected by the First Amendment, under an overly broad prohibition against sexual material ``contrary to public welfare and morals.''

``It takes the alcohol regulation people out of the business of censorship and tells them to do what they should be doing,'' said Peter Eliasberg, the ACLU attorney who litigated the swingers' case.

``They shouldn't be thought police or be art police.''

That leaves cities - and ABC investigators permitted to help them - to control sex and bars.

Deborah Sanchez, an attorney with the Los Angeles Special Enforcement Unit, said porn bars would be treated like any other new adult businesses limited under strict city zoning, obscenity and nuisance laws. Conditional use permits could also limit the practice.

``There isn't much space for new adult businesses,'' Sanchez said. ``If a bar shows sexually oriented material and it becomes a nuisance to the community, heck, yeah, we'll do something about it.''

Said Botting: ``I'm sure some licensees may try to take advantage of this, but to the extent to which it could become a (pornographic) free-for- all, there is no basis for such a fear.''

But Shea says current city X-rated ordinances fail to allow for cable porn. Others such as Jeff Goldfarb, an adult business attorney for Newport Beach and other cities, say Los Angeles has plenty of areas in which to open X-rated businesses, including bars.

Repeal of the state anti-smut rule ``will cause some bars on the financial margin to bring in adult movies in one form or another,'' he said. ``Whether cities in the long run will be able to essentially fill the legislative gap left by the appeal court remains to be seen.''