Porn Producers Threaten to Leave L.A. After Condom Vote

Some of the major players of Los Angeles's adult film industry say they will take their productions out of town if the city council enforces the mandatory use of condoms on film sets.

Last week, the Los Angeles city council approved an ordinance sponsored by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AFH) that would deny film permits to productions that violated the already-on-the-books law requiring the use of condoms.

"It's going to be interesting to see how in fact they do try to enforce [the law] and who's going to fund it, and all of the time and effort they're going to spend," said Steven Hirsch, co-founder of adult entertainment company Vivid, who predicts that the new ordinance will cause producers to take their film shoots out of the city.

Christian Mann, general manager of Evil Angel, agreed. "The only thing that the city could potentially achieve is losing some film permit money and driving some productions away, but you can't actually compel an industry to create a product that the market doesn't want," he said.

"Let's make one thing clear," said AHF spokesman Ged Kenslea, "Condom use on adult film sets is, and has been, the law in California under blood-borne pathogens regulations," he said. "It is just a law that has not been uniformly enforced or followed. This film permit ordinance that the city council approved today provides another enforcement mechanism to make sure that adult film producers are complying with existing California law."

The measure needs to be approved by Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa before it can be put into effect.

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