The Brantley Harbor Homeowners Association has won a suit against College Boys Live, a live gay adult Website the association accused of violating restrictions against running a business out of a home, a home from which they've since relocated.
"We are certainly encouraged by the judge's decision in this case," said Benjamin Bull, chief counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, which funded the lawsuit. Bull called College Boys Live a profitmaking venture "from illicit activity…(that) was not only a nuisance that was in clear violation of the homeowners' association regulations (but) also posed a danger to residents."
The dangers, the homeowners association charged, included more speeding traffic, noise from parties advertised in the home by way of the Website, and too many people moving into and out of the house in question.
Judith T. Crago, the home's owner, had leased it to College Boys Live owner Charles Foulk, who has said in the past that he believed the lawsuit's root was homosexuality – but one published report said complaints about the house's activities also came from other gays.
Bull denied that homosexuality per se was the root of the case. "It has everything to do with abiding by the rules and living peaceably with your neighbors," he said after the verdict. "The members of the community went to great lengths to avoid this suit but letters, pleas, and attempts at negotiation were unsuccessful."
The case began in 2001, when the homeowners' association first began complaining about Foulk and the house. Foulk told a newspaper that no one knew just what went on inside the house until an incident involving a water balloon breaking a window – and, when neighbors came to help him fix the window, they saw cameras and posters advertising the site, and a "curious neighbor logged on (to College Boys Live), launching the firestorm of controversy."
