Permit Bill Sponsors Got Donations from AIDS Healthcare

LOS ANGELES—An investigation by AVN has found that the author of a City Council motion to require adult companies to use condoms, dental dams and face shields/goggles during sex scenes or be denied a City of Los Angeles filming permit has received campaign donations from AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) president Michael Weinstein, as has one of the motion's co-sponsors.

District 11 Councilmember William "Bill" Rosendahl has received $1,000 in campaign contributions from Weinstein personally: $500 in 2004, when Rosendahl was first running for City Council, and two further contributions of $250 each in the spring of 2005 to Rosendahl's general campaign fund. In addition, Weinstein also contributed a total of $600 to District 5 Councilmember Paul Koretz: $500 in January of 2009, two months before Koretz, who had "termed out" as a state assemblymember, stood for his first election to City Council in March of 2009, and $100 one month after Koretz's election.

Koretz, it will be remembered, held a public meeting in 2004, shortly after one industry performer who had worked overseas proved to be HIV-positive and infected three other performers before being detected by AIM Healthcare Foundation's regular testing regime, and later wrote an "open letter" to adult producers calling for  condom use during adult productions and intimating that if condoms were not "voluntarily" mandated, that the state assembly would require their use.

Whether Weinstein's contributions to the council members played any part in their recent call for the City Attorney to report on the Council's ability to force FilmL.A. to refuse shooting permits to non-condom productions remains to be discovered.

Check back to AVN.com for more information on this developing story.