Maui Wowie - An AVN Conference Dispatch

Okay, Cancun may have the better beaches, but Maui's definitely one-up with the weather and the poolside cocktail girls. Maui's the island of the fresh fruit bowl and nifty souvenir T-shirts, where every bartender's a fugitive surfer from either Manhattan Beach or San Diego and every woman's a pin-up girl from an orthodontist's calendar. Oh, and then there was the Second Annual AVN Conference which got underway there April 14 at the Hyatt Regency.

Some old and new faces were seen among this year's group of 80 attendees. Some of the new kids on the conference block were Chris and Greg from Anabolic Video; the Free Speech Coalition's new executive director, Bill Lyon; Digital Playground's Samantha Lewis; Evil Angel's John Stagliano and Trish Devereaux, Hollywood Video's Loretta Sterling and performer Vylet Luv.

First Amendment attorneys Paul Cambria and Bob DePiano led kick-off discussions involving various legal issues, including the Supreme Court's recent pasties and g-strings ruling in the City of Erie v. PAPs AM case - the Bad Day at Black Rock equivalent of legal milestones where public nudity is concerned. The prevailing school of thought is that the decision in PAP's represents a further deterioration of First Amendment protection for nude dancing. Citing the Court's six-to-three vote in the decision, the suggestion was that the higher Court's rulings are subject to change, but only with time's shifting balances-of-power within the court structure. Cambria's notion was that even though some of the points were moot in the PAP's case because Kandyland, the principal, is no longer doing business; nevertheless, a concerted effort was made to bring the case to the High Court to take advantage of its current political makeup.

Cambria also offered a blueprint for insuring less legal hassles during election year. "The box cover is the first line of defense," Cambria said. "The court room is the last frontier. You don't want to wind up there." Cambria also lent some fascinating insights into the political mindsets that fuel obscenity prosecutions.

That day capped off with a beachside dinner sponsored by AVN.

Loud music or soft? Hardcore trailers or not? Nudity or pasties? More security and line control? A fan appreciation day? Those were some of the issues discussed at the Maui conference April 15, when Tracy Harris and Kimberly Orr, representatives of AdvanStar, fielded a discussion group to determine future ground rules for The Adult Expo shows. A general consensus will be gleaned by the entire industry before any rules are put into affect, it was noted. The summer show is scheduled for July 8-10 in Las Vegas; the winter show, Jan. 7-10 following the ia2000 show, which is scheduled Jan. 4-6.

Bill Lyon, executive director of the Free Speech Coalition, also took the podium and brought the conference up-to-speed with some of the programs FSC is implementing. Lyon acknowledged that one of Free Speech's past weaknesses has been the ability to toot its own horn; but that major changes are in the wind.

With whitish hair and a puckish face, Lyon's reminiscent of a senior member of the Osmond family. Lyon has been at the job about four months now. In an interview conducted at the conference, Lyon had this to say about some of the FSC's current projects, including the development of state organizations, or chapters:

"The first [FSC] state organization is West Virginia, and, as it happened, an attorney from West Virginia had been in contact with our California lobbyist, Kat Sunlove, for about six months. He talked about the fact that he'd like to become involved with us in some way in the FSC. When we developed the concept of the state chapter, it became a natural thing that he'd come in as first one of the bunch. He was associated with a lobbyist, a gentleman named Lopez, who went into the West Virginia legislature and got some language changed in a bill that was going through. That was quite helpful to us. Then, we started trying to contact people, FSC members in various states who might not necessarily spearhead a new state organization, but could direct us to someone who might be interested in doing it.

"Right along with that, we were working together with the FSC board to develop the associate member category, which we had not had in the past. That's really a key to the state organizations because they'll probably be much more made up by these associate members than they will be of people directly involved in the industry. In almost every case, we have ended up with an attorney involved in each state." He says video stores will play an important part in developing the state organizations and soliciting associate memberships.

"We've also arranged to develop a self-mailer brochure that will go in all the stores, explaining what we're trying to do," Lyon said. "People can join and it will be $25 a year. We also invite those people to become active in the state organizations."

"Our problem in West Virginia is that we went ahead with this but didn't have it well thought-out in terms of structure and organization," he continued. "It was a test situation. Now that we realize the relationship that has to exist between these two organizations - the national Free Speech and the state organization - we are drawing up to what amounts to a licensing agreement which will allow them to use the Free Speech Coalition name based on a payment to us on an annualized basis and certain restrictions as to what they can do with that name or ways that they can use it. We feel that this is the best overall way of organizing it. Each state has got different laws in the way it can be set up."

FSC state chapters in development include New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, Texas, Washington, Oregon and California. "It's pretty surprising how people have responded to this, considering the fact that we haven't promoted it a lot," he said. "It's been word-of-mouth. For example, I talked to Frank [Kay] when I was in New Jersey. Frank said he used an attorney [Jules Zalon] in Newark. I called him on the phone and he was interested in working with it. It's now a question of it being something he'll be able to work with."

One of the key issues in the adult businesses is piracy, and state organizations can play a very effective role. Lyons agreed. "They could be our eyes and ears to pick up on that sort of thing. I certainly see them as a major source of local level information in terms of zoning problems - not only reacting to them in political action, but getting us the information ahead of time. So often we don't find out until, literally, the night before a meeting that it's happening, and it's too late for us to take action. I'm hoping that this will give us an intelligence network that will give us information quicker."

He also foresees the need for the FSC to expand its fights, territorially, beyond the adult industry; and be involved in other high-profile First Amendment causes. Such a fight is taking place in Michigan where there's an attempt to ban the Harry Potter books from school libraries.

"That is a situation that gave us an opportunity to become an active part of a broader Free Speech issue," he said. "The issue was that the principal of this particular school in Michigan had chosen to eliminate that book from the library, which is pure censorship. It was a fantasy situation and the thought was that this type of fantasy is not healthy for young people to read. What would we do with Tolkien?

"Our situation has been that many of these broader First Amendment operations are willing to have us help them sub rosa but are not willing to give us credit for being involved in their group - things like the Media Coalition, where you have the Library Association and so on," he continued. "They're sponsored by Playboy to a large degree, but they're not so sure they want to be directly involved with us. What I'm trying to do is show that we have interests that are as broad as theirs, that we're not this narrow focus group that's only interested in adult issues, so that we can become acceptable as truly being First Amendment advocates."