COLUMBUS, Oh. – According to free speech activist Sandy Theis, getting the so-called "Community Defense Act" aka Senate Bill 16 on the November ballot is in the bag.
"I think on Monday we'll file about 400,000 signatures," Theis told AVN.com. "I was in Cleveland all day and I haven't been able to get to my email to get the latest update. We definitely have more than enough counties covered."
What were needed were 241,366 signatures from registered Ohio voters in 44 of the state's 88 counties, so getting the required number of signatures hasn't been a problem for more than two weeks; the worry has been making sure that at least 3% of the voters from the last gubernatorial election in at least half of Ohio's counties were represented among them, and Theis is sure that's been taken care of.
The other problem was getting the petitions filed in time, since Citizens for Community Standards (CCS), the umbrella group that's spearheaded the signature drive, was up against an interesting constitutional problem.
"Monday is a state holiday, Labor Day," Theis explained, "and our deadline for filing falls on that holiday. And because the Constitution, not the statute, sets the deadline, we don't get the carry-over day like you normally do if a deadline falls on a holiday, so we either had to file it the Friday before, which is tomorrow, or on Labor Day, and just to be safe, in case we found some last-minute problem, we decided to go right up to the deadline, and the Secretary of State's office was nice enough to accommodate us.
"We're going to do it at 4:30 in the afternoon," Theis continued. "I'm going to try to get a couple of dancers there, because everyone loves the dancers. It's not at a public building; it's one where the state rents space in the building, so we're going to deliver them to the loading dock behind 180 E. Broad Street in Columbus; it's in an alley named Lynn Alley, which I think might make a nice picture anyway. I've had a number of press calls about it already, so I think we'll get some good coverage."
Theis encourages anyone who supports the right of adult businesses to stay open past midnight, and for dancers – even those who are fully clothed – not to get put in jail for touching customers to "come on down" and watch the fun.
And speaking of fun ...
"CCV [Citizens for Community Values, the supporters of SB 16] wanted an emergency TRO [temporary restraining order] to force us to change our name," Theis said. "They lost that motion, although there's still going to be a hearing on the non-emergency TRO, and the judge was strongly urging both sides to reach a compromise."
However, considering CCV's propensity for litigation and its hatred of adult material, a compromise seems unlikely.
"The judge insists we picked the name for the purpose of confusion," Theis explained, "which really pisses me off because I picked the name and I spent 25 years as a political reporter; I don't think the voters are stupid. I think if you give them good, solid accurate information, we're going to have a pretty good shot with them. I don't think you need to scare them or confuse them like CCV does, but he insisted that we did, and one of the things he asked us to do was to put a disclaimer on our website that says we're not affiliated with CCV. I said that's fine, so I put, 'Proudly not affiliated with Citizens for Community Values' up on our website, and then we put in parentheses some crack like, 'We're the group that supports free expression and opposes abusive government regulation.' CCV also wanted us to do the disclaimer on any TV ads where we mentioned them, and we said, 'No!' And that's where the negotiations broke down. I think that's actually good for us because it just shows how ridiculous they are, but who knows what's going to happen?"
One thing that's going to happen is that CCS is going to blanket the state with ads urging voters to reject SB 16 ... and that's going to take lots of money.
"The next phase is the expensive phase, the advertising," Theis stated. "This is going to be a multi-million-dollar effort."
Speakers at the recent Gentlemen's Club Expo told club owners and adult retailers in the audience that contributions have so far fallen short of expenses, and also of the importance of the effort, since CCV has made it known that if SB 16 is successful in Ohio, the group will try to export the same restrictions to any other state where it thinks it can find a friendly reception among legislators.
So in order for the fight to continue, adult businesses across the country are urged to make contributions to the petition effort, which can now be done on the organization's website (www.citizensforcommunitystandards.org).
Contributions, large or small, can also be mailed to:
BACE
c/o Rondee Kamins
3700 Kelley Ave.
Cleveland, OH 44114
or,
BACE
C/O LD Management
Attention: Jim Everett
110 East Wilson Ridge Rd. Suite 100
Worthington, Ohio 43085
(Make checks payable to "BACE.")
Please contribute whatever you can. The fight isn't over – in fact, it's about to get even harder.
