Authorities raided seven area sex shops last week, seizing more than 60,000 DVDs and four computers, and then shut down almost all of the adult businesses in Sydney's red light district.
According to a report in The Sydney Morning Herald, six men and one woman were charged with a variety of offenses, including selling unclassified pornographic material.
Penalties for possessing unclassified — or x-rated — material include a $100,000 fine and/or a maximum of 12 months' jail for an individual, and a $250,000 fine for businesses.
The raids, conducted under the guise of child pornography searches, came after a six-month investigation, local police chief Cynthia Hayes told the Herald. Authorities claim that computers in the local sex shops have been used to view kiddie porn.
"We allege almost all the business conducted in these adult bookshops is illegal and we have effectively shut them down," said Hayes.
The recent raids have exposed the lack of consistency in regulating X-rated material in Australia, as it is a criminal offense to sell some adult material but legal to buy and own it.
Local workers and shop owners were not convinced this would be the end of the sex shops. An employee of Porky's Nite Spot told reporters that he expected all the seized material would be X-rated.
"You'll see - it will be back to normal in the next day or two," he said.
