Scott Barton announced that he is leaving his position as Vice President of Public Relations for Playboy Entertainment Group after eight years.
Barton will switch his focus to media liaison projects with several special event companies in Los Angeles and also will continue doing freelance work for Playboy.
“I’m at the point now where I know my strengths and I have wonderful contacts, and I have a great history of 25 years of working in media,” Barton told AVN.com. “Playboy is so vast now that I want to contribute my skills to more specific projects and less overall. I’m 51. I have the luxury now, thanks to Playboy, of picking and choosing projects I want to work on and that I’m passionate about.”
Barton said the reason he came to Playboy was that founder Hugh Hefner has stood up for First Amendment rights for over 50 years.
“And I think that we are at a critical time politically. American adults have the right to pick and choose what they want to see and have access to, and technologically we have the capacity to make that choice. And it scares me to death to think that government is trying to come in and legislate what those choices are,” he said.
He continued, “I think it’s demeaning and diminishing to the American population for the government to come in and decide when and how people should be able to seek entertainment, but I also strongly believe that greater good will rise to the occasion.
“If government decides to push too hard, I’m hoping Americans will decide to say, ‘No. Let us decide.’ Hef has fought hard for decades for those rights and almost 50 years later, those choices are being challenged.”
Barton said one of the projects he would be involved with is Playboy’s venture with the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas that will include a nightclub, casino lounge, restaurant and VIP residences. That will launch in the first quarter of 2006.
“I’ve had a great eight years here,” he said. “This is another chapter in my life. I’ll still be working with them on special projects, but I’m really excited about what’s going to come up next.”
