Lifestyles Organization<\/a> (LSO) had just hosted its annual convention in\u00a0 San Diego and all seemed right with the world.\u00a0 This was the third year in that\u00a0 city and contracts were signed for another three years. – including an extra\u00a0 long weekend fete celebrating New Years Eve.\u00a0 What could possibly go wrong?<\/p>\nWell about a month after the convention, LSO was told there was a problem\u00a0 with the California Alcoholic Beverage Commission.\u00a0 It seems an ABC agent\u00a0 reported having witnessed illegal sex acts during the Masquerade Ball, which had been\u00a0 held on the last night of the convention.\u00a0 Why he said nothing at the time, why he informed neither hotel security nor LSO’s security, why he did nothing\u00a0 to stop those alleged acts himself is anyone’s guess.\u00a0 Curiously, the San Diego
\nvice squad – who also had agents present – reported no such violations.
\nDespite all this, the bottom line is that one individual, with no evidence, no\u00a0 witnesses, no lawbreakers arrested (or even named) effectively drove the more\u00a0 than 2000 LIFESTYLE convention couples out of town.\u00a0 Just like that!<\/p>\n
This was all happening about the time that LSO was in the midst of planning\u00a0 its annual Halloween Dance.\u00a0 The hotel selected for that event was in Long\u00a0 Beach (about 100 miles from San Diego) and the staff there was working hard to see\u00a0 that the affair went smoothly, obviously hoping for future LSO contracts.\u00a0 What could possibly go wrong?<\/p>\n
Well, the local ABC agent contacted the hotel and that was pretty much the\u00a0 end of that.\u00a0 He told them that the hotel’s liquor license was on the line.\u00a0 Since this would most likely result in the various hotel managers losing their\u00a0 jobs as well, the mood was suddenly grim.\u00a0 But the contracts had been signed so,\u00a0 despite the ABC’s threat, the Halloween Dance came off without a hitch.\u00a0 Indeed, the Long Beach police were in attendance and reported no illegalities.\u00a0 This made no difference, however, and LSO was henceforth considered persona non\u00a0 grata at that facility<\/p>\n
By now the president of LSO, Dr. Robert McGinley had tried repeatedly to\u00a0 communicate with the local ABC agents.\u00a0 They were completely unreceptive.\u00a0 In\u00a0 fact, their attitude was that since McGinley didn’t have a liquor license, they\u00a0 didn’t have to talk to him.\u00a0 Clearly it didn’t matter that he was the one they\u00a0 were putting out of business.\u00a0 Since that sounded far too much like a Catch 22,\u00a0 McGinley got his lawyer and flew to the state capitol in Sacramento.\u00a0 Meeting\u00a0 with the agency heads was a friendly enough affair but, as subsequent events\u00a0 made plain, a total waste of both time and money.<\/p>\n
While this was happening, plans for the next LIFESTYLES convention were well\u00a0 underway, with Palm Springs (which is more than 100 miles from San Diego, Long\u00a0 Beach and Sacramento) selected as the site for the gathering.\u00a0 The staff of the city’s convention center and the managers of the four hotels where the\u00a0 conventioneers would be staying were most accommodating.\u00a0 There was even talk of a\u00a0 community wide welcome effort similar to that afforded the gay and lesbian conclaves that have made Palm Springs their once-a-year home away from home.
\nLIFESTYLES would, after all, be bringing an estimated $1.7 million to the city’s\u00a0 otherwise non-existent summer economy.\u00a0 What could possibly go wrong?<\/p>\n
Well, the local ABC agent then called a meeting of everyone involved and it\u00a0 was downhill from there.\u00a0 Did I say, “everyone involved?”\u00a0 Actually the LSO\u00a0 people, the ones most involved were never officially informed.\u00a0 It was only after receiving a tip that McGinley and his attorney put in an appearance.\u00a0 But\u00a0 trying to explain the finer points of the law to the agent of an agency that sees\u00a0 itself as being beyond the law is a lot like trying to teach a pig to whistle; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.<\/p>\n
By way of background to all this, the ABC was originally established after\u00a0 the infamous Prohibition Act (which was ultimately responsible for organized\u00a0 crime in this country) was repealed.\u00a0 The fledgling ABC was charged with such specific tasks as regulating the hours that alcohol could be sold and such vague\u00a0 generalities as defending morality; whatever that’s supposed to mean.\u00a0 The\u00a0 sloppy wording was intended to sort of wrap around the ill-defined evils of drink but in fact it resulted in a government bureaucracy with far more in the way of power than mission.\u00a0 All an ABC agent needs to do is suspend a bar’s liquor license (the holding of which is viewed as a privilege rather than a right) to effectively put that business into foreclosure.\u00a0 Of course this is still\u00a0 America so the matter can be taken to court\u2026right?\u00a0 Wrong!\u00a0 Along with having a\u00a0 seemingly inexhaustible supply of taxpayers’ money to fight taxpayers, it’s\u00a0 almost impossible to haul the ABC before a judge.\u00a0 Just read on to see why this is so.<\/p>\n
Following true to form, the Palm Springs ABC agent told the managers of the city’s convention center that merely opening the doors of the annual Sensuous &\u00a0 Erotic Art Exhibition would result in the loss of their license.\u00a0 This was before anyone other than the curator even knew what was going to be in the show – which was going to be held in a room where no food or drink would be sold – or even allowed!\u00a0 The ABC agent contended that as long as the facility held a\u00a0 liquor license, he had jurisdiction over the entire complex.\u00a0 Following this line of reasoning, X-rated movies would be illegal in hotel rooms with mini-bars and, indeed, nudity of any kind would be prohibited in any establishment
\nwith a liquor license.\u00a0 This would make criminals of all those who ever showered upstairs in a hotel that had a bar downstairs.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, the American Civil Liberties Union took an interest and obtained a federal restraining order.\u00a0 So the show and, indeed, the entire convention\u00a0 were allowed to continue almost as planned.\u00a0 I say “almost” because the atmosphere had by that time grown decidedly hostile and all talk of future conventions in Palm Springs were dropped.\u00a0 When the media contacted the ABC office for comment, they were told that the agent in charge was on vacation.<\/p>\n
While no one in their right mind could possibly look forward to taking on an established bureaucracy, it was at this point that McGinley felt he had no\u00a0 choice.\u00a0 It was either fight the ABC or close up shop.\u00a0 So a court suit was launched charging Jay Stroh, Dir. of CA Dept. of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, Manuel Espinoza, Chief Dep. Dir. of the CA Alcoholic Beverage Control, Gilson Grey, Administrator of the CA ABC Long Beach\/Lakewood Dist., Kenton Byers, Chief Council for the CA Alcoholic Beverage Control and Robert Luman, Chief of Police in Long Beach with violating the 1st, 5th, 9th and 14th Amendments to the US Constitution.\u00a0 The case centered on the ABC’s gross misuse of authority, stating that the defendants conspired to undertake an intricate scheme
\ntargeting LSO and designed expressly (with malice of forethought) to “Drive them out of California.”<\/p>\n
Arguing for the ABC in California’s Superior Court on September 1st, Dana\u00a0 Cartozian of the Attorney General’s Office told Judge Thomas McKnew that although\u00a0 the agency would “politely read” his opinion, it would continue to act in kind.\u00a0 Judge McKnew responded “You’ve just thrown down the gauntlet, sir” and went on to say “I’m still going to exercise the prerogatives I believe I have” and “you can take that back to your boss and I would hope you would take it back directly because I’m offended\u2026if the ABC is controlling expression\u2026outside of their authority\u2026I believe I do have jurisdiction.”\u00a0 Judge McKnew added “If
\nthe board that you’re representing is going to act like a Rambo, the best place\u00a0 for it to first be heard is in the Superior Court\u2026these allegations are\u00a0 against individuals who are using the ABC as an instrument to carry out their own\u00a0 view of what should be the morals of the State of California” and “I don’t see\u00a0 in the statute or the State Administrative Code where that authority is given\u00a0 to the individual defendants in this case.”\u00a0 In short, it was Cartozian’s contention that whatever may be said in high school civics classes about the right of the common man to fight City Hall, it didn’t apply to the ABC.\u00a0 Of course, Judge McKnew would have none of that and, after hearing the case, found in favor of LSO.<\/p>\n
And wouldn’t be nice if that was the end of the story – justice, however
\nbelatedly and expensively, had finally been done!\u00a0 But such was not the case. Working with their seemingly inexhaustible supply of taxpayer cash, the ABC continued the legal battle for another five years.\u00a0 And now Justice Patti Kitching\u00a0 of the 2nd District of Appeals has reversed McKnew’s decision saying that he was wrong to have even heard the case because his court had no jurisdiction over the ABC and the actions they take.\u00a0 They are, in effect, above the law as it\u00a0 applies to LSO and, by extension, above the law as it applies to you and to me.<\/p>\n
So the next time somebody tries to tell you that this is the Land of the
\nFree\u2026just ask them if they have a liquor license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Jeff Booth This is one of the more bizarre cases of censorship, and it was one that I experienced first hand. I worked as a volunteer at this convention and got to witness all of the events as they played out. Steve Mason was even more directly involved with it and the aftermath, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-censorship","category-centersee-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.centersee.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.centersee.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.centersee.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.centersee.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.centersee.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.centersee.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":304,"href":"http:\/\/www.centersee.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions\/304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.centersee.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.centersee.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.centersee.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}