Larry Flynt’s latest project, a 17,000 square foot “flagship” Hustler Hollywood on Sunrise Boulevard that’s less than one week from completion, is now free to open, thanks to the defeat of a new city ordinance that would have put vague but onerous restrictions of the business that might have kept it from operating altogether.
“What they were trying to do was pass a statute that would have made it difficult if not impossible for Hustler to be in business, as opposed to the current law which is basically a 51-49 law,” explained Flynt attorney Paul Cambria. “That wouldn’t be a problem at all; 49 percent is more than enough to run the store, and we didn’t have a problem with that. But they had a very complicated formula, one like I’ve never seen before, which I felt would have been ultimately ruled unconstitutional.”
The main proponents of the ordinance were Ft. Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle and Vice Mayor Dean Trantalis, backed by the local branch of the American Family Association, as well as the usual stack of “secondary effects” studies as well as the city’s own legal staff and consultants, but in the end, the other council members, two women and a man, made the vote 3-2 to defeat the proposal.
“Before we walked in,” Cambria recounted, “we said, ‘Is there any room for negotiation?’ He [Trantalis] goes, ‘No, it’s a done deal.’ And I said to Jamie Benjamin, my local counsel, ‘I’m gonna argue it anyway.’ And I argued it and wound up getting into a debate with this Trantalis guy, who’s also an attorney, and the mayor tried to cut me off at one point and I told him it wasn't fair to cut me off because Trantalis made a couple of statements that needed to be answered on the record.”
And answer them, Cambria did.
“I started off by telling them that it was my position, and I feel this might be a valid position that should be taken more often in these cases – I said, ‘We were granted a building permit by you at a time when the law was 51-49, and in reliance on that, we spent several million dollars building this store and obligated LFP to a several-million-dollar long-term lease, and we relied on that, and anything that interferes with that will result in litigation from us.’ I said, ‘There’s no ifs, ands or buts about it: This will be litigated.’”
“At one point,” Cambria continued, “Trantalis said, ‘Well, you sent us a proposal for a sign and it was an in-your-face sign that violated all of our zoning codes.’ And I said, ‘No, I sent you an artist’s rendition, and I said, “This is the kind of sign we’re thinking of; we invite your comments.” My letter says, “We invite your comments.” We had not filed a sign plan with the city, and you did not give me any comments; all you did was object, but you gave me no positive comments.’ I said, ‘So that’s not accurate that we had an in-your-face sign; we had a concept; we asked for your input to try to be a good neighbor. You ignored us and then criticized our sign.’ I said, ‘I’ve got the letter right here. I’ll read it to you.’ ‘No, no, no; you don’t have to read it to me.’”
“And he goes, ‘Well, but you said you would do some other landscaping.’ I said, ‘I told you that I wasn’t going to allow you to make us do additional landscaping other than what anybody else would have to do under the law. There’s no reason for us to have a super-law apply to us. I told you, once we were given our landscaping permit for the legal minimum, then we would voluntarily landscape the premises in order to accommodate certain neighborhood groups. That’s what I told you. There’s no basis to make us jump a higher hurdle than anyone else. We’ll agree to do it, but you can’t force us to do it. That was what I told you. And our letter says that.’ And I said, ‘I’m telling you now that Larry Flynt is offering to you the ability to have input on our signs and on our landscaping. That offer still stands.’”
The hour-long hearing was less than amicable, and at one point, Cambria thought he’d lost the vote, and went outside to tell news media that he planned to sue.
“We didn’t realize they voted it down, and we’re out there telling the press we’re going to sue the city, and they go, ‘Why are you going to do that? You won.’ And we go, ‘Huh?’ And we went back in and had to check with the clerk.”
The proposed ordinance was one of the worst of the new boilerplate ordinances crafted by Religious Right groups and shopped to municipalities across the country.
“It was an ordinance based on gross profits, based on stock-in-trade, based on floor space,” Cambria explained. “It had all the components in there that we’ve seen in a number of these statutes, and cited all the American Family Association bullshit, and it definitely was that kind of a statute, whereas previously, it was only a ‘no more than 49% could be adult video’ situation, which is now currently the law, still the law.”
The city had tried to bolster its claim by citing some of the most commonly used secondary effects studies, some of which were 30 years old, but Cambria shot them down.
“I proceeded to say that all the research that they had, that their lawyers and consultants and so on gave them, had nothing to do with this kind of a store, which is a take-out store,” Cambria detailed. “They did not do a study that dealt with a take-out-only store, and I pointed out to them that a number of cases recently have recognized that there is a difference between a take-out-only store and a store where activities are occurring on the premises, which are all those old studies, and that as a result, the research they were relying upon was irrelevant.”
The arguments are now history, since it would take several weeks for the city to craft a new ordinance, and the Hustler store would be open and operating by them.
But Cambria emphasized that he would have liked to make the opening as community-friendly as possible.
“I tried to explain to him [Trantalis] that every other store we’ve opened is a multi-million-dollar event, and the [property] values in and around the stores have tripled since we’ve opened, which is true,” Cambria said.
“We were pretty thrilled by the vote,” Cambria concluded. “It’s going to be a great flagship store; 17,000 square feet, hardwood floors, state-of-the-art fixtures – a really beautiful store. We’re going to eventually incorporate a coffee shop into it as well, and it’ll be a great improvement for that part of Sunrise Boulevard.”
