VISALIA, Calif. – When this central California city's transit agency accepted an ad for local adult store Wild Willy's for one of its buses, it ignited a controversy.
According to its bylaws, Visalia City Coach is permitted to accept advertising from most any entity—except churches. "Suppose you get Satanic Worship of America or something," says Monty Cox, the transit manager. "We don't want anyone to stop riding our buses because they're offended."
However, that philosophy didn't prevent Pastor Bob Grenier, who runs the Visalia Calvary Church, from being upset when the city refused to place a promotional logo for the church's youth organization on buses—despite the fact that the group had contributed funds to the agency.
School board trustee Mike Lane sides with Grenier, saying, "John 3:16 is not allowed, yet Wild Willy's is accommodated. It seems that the faith community is being pushed out of the public square."
But the transit authority's Cox doesn't see it that way, noting that there was no reason to deny the advertisement for Wild Willy's, a store in the neighboring community of Goshen that sells (among other items) adult novelties. "It's a legal business in our service area," he says.
Even so, a rash of complaints has impelled Visalia's city attorney to review the policy.
The owner of Wild Willy's, William Ball, takes issue with the assessment of his store as a "sex shop." He told a Fresno Bee reporter that his store caters to couples and neither rents videos nor contains video booths. Explicit merchandise, such as adult DVDs and sex toys, are in a small anteroom, not in the main area of the store. "We're really just a retail store," Ball says. "I pay taxes. I'm just a regular business."
Complicating the issue is that Visalia's policy is in conflict with many neighboring transit authorities. Nearby Fresno and Clovis maintain identical policies excluding "sexually oriented business" ads, and Modesto's transit manager said the city would reject an adult store ad. All allow advertisements from churches.
The Fresno Bee spoke to Peter Eliasberg, an ACLU attorney, who says that the law is "mixed" in regards to bus ads, because judges typically consider buses a "nonpublic forum" and thus not entitled to the usual free-speech guarantees. Cities are permitted to reject ads as long as their policy indicates, for instance, that only commercial advertisements will be accepted.
In fact, that's exactly what Visalia's policy says: "It is VCC's policy to only accept advertising related to the sales of goods and services."
Nonetheless, Lane believes it is in the city's best interest to reject such ads. (Ball pays $425 a month for the billboard, which appears on one bus.) "It's not a political thing. I've got a 13-year-old daughter," Lane says. "It's not moral outrage, [but] an opportunity to have a dialogue about appropriateness."
Source: Fresno Bee
