Ch 17 Reports

The jury. In the community in Tonawanda decided that the materials were not me not a judge somewhere but a jury of average individuals off the street men and women young and I am told by authorities that store is who is considered the Howard Hughes of the point to point out a few industry. If we're going to allow them they should be allowed in areas where there will not be children present. The residents will not be homeowners. They should not be allowed in areas where they can bring serious deterioration. But words and pictures do influence human behavior. On Channel 17 reports on a year battle

in a quiet village It centers on a controversial adult book store here in the heart of the village that operates 24 hours a day. Seven days a week. It offers displays of sexual explicit sexual activity in magazines books and twenty eight point operated. Concerned citizens and officials here are up in arms. But it appears they are fighting a losing battle. Bookstore you represent has been rated at least five times more Saudis. What are your thoughts on the police action. Well I think they're just responding to a vocal minority and can more I mean a lot of people made. An awful lot of noise about the bookstore and the police departments attempting to respond. I'm not completely convinced that the way they responded was appropriate but they had no experience with that kind of a

situation so I think they did what they thought was best and the circumstances turned out not to be in accordance with the law all the time but that's to be expected. Was your client arrested anyway before I don't think there's any question that there was a concerted effort over the period of two or three years that they've been there to attempt to drive them out of town that's what attracted me to the case I frankly and hindsight are in view of my situation I wish I'd never seen the case. It really turned out to be a headache for me and something that I don't know if I do it again or people made several inspections of the place and they found that at least in their opinion that the district attorney there were some illegal devices as well as films that were being shown in court operated booths. So that we sent an undercover officer in to view the films

and follow procedures as they were dictated to us by a district attorney and went from there. Books and magazines really haven't been the issue the main issue has been. Sexual devices and what we felt were pornographic films. It's only things that we really have gotten involved in up to this point. The activities in the Delaware Avenue adult bookstore drew the wrath of a young housewife. This is Cathy Double A mother of three small children lives around the block a short distance away from the village book a new store. And in a short time hundreds of protesters joined her in the Concerned Citizens of Kenmore organization. Approximately 800 individuals have participated for the past two years at one time we were picketing for 10 hours a day. Six days a week. We had a door to door a petition drive in which we netted 16000 petitions. In opposition to the location of the store in our community.

What was the reaction to the storm boy to your picket line. It was a mixed reaction. Put up a sign saying free coffee for picketers to irritate us that they didn't hear of us. They don't care about the community. They're off from out of town as far as I know they're all from the New York City area. At least that's what they have told me in passing conversations. They have no interest in Canmore in its residents and high quality of life. But there are a lot of good people around. I don't think we need a neighborhood like this here. Many stories of.

Course. Waste of a mind is a very very tragic thing. And I agree with many psychiatrists. Pornography is a cancer of the mind. There is a situation of it involves the bookstore and there's been a significant amount of

input from Village residents who don't like what's going on there or some people don't care but in any event there's a lot of input that the Village Board gets now any legislation it's adopted by the Village Board has to deal with across the board situations we cannot as a village adopt legislation that's particularly against any particular business whether it's the bookstore or any other business that would be discrimination and the board cannot do that constitutionally so in this particular instance we have adopted legislation that impacts upon the bookstore as well as other businesses. And it just so happens that the bookstores chosen to. Attack those particular laws as they are applied against the bookstore and have been successful. I wouldn't say it's a defeat though in that it's just a question of laws were adopted that were held not applicable to the situation your client has been in and out of both the village and town courts what is your assessment of these courts.

Well the courts have really been doing a marvelous job. The Town Court is the court that really has had the case and it's marvelous because they're not used to these types of cases and there's an awful lot of work to be done by the judges and they've done the work and a lot of times that's been misinterpreted by some of the people in the community too. They think that they're dogging it so to speak or they're taking too long to make decisions. This is an awfully tough area this is the toughest area in the law in all of the criminal cases that I've defended in the time of my career. These are the toughest cases and the toughest cases for the judges also because the laws were clearly like in Canmore situation clearly a concerted effort to tailor some law so that you could drive them out of business government shouldn't be doing that and people shouldn't tolerate government sitting down and saying OK now let's construct certain laws and the end result is we're going to put someone out of business. The government's not supposed to be doing that.

Dr. Armand difference just goes a practicing psychiatrist and a consultant on pornography for the Erie County District Attorney. The state attorney general the U.S. attorney general and the Postal Service. And once you allow them in the community they gradually expand their merchandise so that it includes every form of perverse device. And what you have to be concerned about is the fact that words and pictures do influence human behavior. That is a fact. That we have known all throughout history books like my income the Bible and The Power of Positive Thinking many books of Influence People. And we know that words lead to thoughts and thoughts lead to actions. And when these actions are of a perverse nature they can affect other members of the community. You see I got started on this a number of years ago when I had a six year old boy as a patient. Who was severely

traumatized and sexually molested by a 12 year old girl who had found pornography in her father's closet and who took this little boy down the cellar and tried to do things to him that she had seen in the books. One barber who kept reading pornographic magazines. Finally he tucked us wife into wife swapping. And she it was against her principles but she finally went along with it to please him and it ended up that she started to become promiscuous and finally left him for another man and he came to me heartbroken and I said oh my what can you expect. You know you titer these things and got her into this type of behavior. If you had any respect for your wife you wouldn't have got her into this in the first place. But he got stimulated by these magazines that made it seem to be exciting. What you have to remember is that most people in the community. Are Knox capable of taking care

of themselves and not being affected by what they read or see the advertising world will tell you that. That they can influence people and motivate behavior and the latest development the Village Board has voted to exempt the store from the recently approved arcade ordinance. You feel that this is a major victory for your clients. Well there's no doubt about that. I didn't. It's not that I didn't anticipate that we were going to win because they did. The law as they tried to apply it to my client was not proper it wasn't lawful for them to try to put the store out of business by these means and they would not have succeeded ultimately in the courts. We would have succeeded because the law is very clear that the statute the way they attempted to apply to my client just couldn't couldn't hold up. Don't you feel that the threat I think it was a $500000 lawsuit against the village board that helped me do this. There's no question it helped they knew we were serious they knew that when we sued them for half a million

dollars in lawyers fees that we meant it. Well any time a municipality or any other party is sued and for half a million dollars the amount of money involved enters into settlement discussions and the various factors involved and whether or not a suit should be settled in this particular case obviously that was discussed. But the real bottom line of the settlement involved at the bookstore namely the machines predated the adoption of your ignorance and therefore was in effect grandfathered in. And so that that law could not be really applied against the bookstore and that's really what the ordinance of stood up. There's no question it would not have stood up a matter of fact even the United States Supreme Court recently. Even the new court the so-called Nixon court. And whatever the Reagan chord they decided to cuse recently that was almost on all fours with our kids saying that these laws are simply not constitutional.

It's a shock to realize. That we have elected a village board and officials who are working. On behalf of the community. To. Protect us to provide for our general well-being and safety and their hands are tied because of an out of state Ohio based corporation. Do you have any knowledge as to the ownership and where they're from and how big they may be. I'm told by authorities that the store is owned by a man named Rubens Burnham who is considered the Howard Hughes of the point to point out a few industry. He's located in Cleveland Ohio. Savva News Corp. and he distributes pornography to 50 states and 40 foreign countries. It's an organized crime controlled industry. Definitely. What kind of criminal activity are you aware of in or near such a store. Generally what we see is a whole series of types of crime. People that would

engage in vice of that nature pornography may well be interested in buying various types of drugs you're talking about. Perhaps I'm into linkage in drug trade in fact it's not unusual for us to to arrest people who sell both drugs and pornography. A second area would be would certainly bring certain people who for reasons we don't fully understand yet a sexually perverted. So we're talking about a possibility of various types of sex crimes in the immediate area. Another thing that brings people who are who have very little in common the like and we're talking about possibility of property crimes such as burglaries. So a whole range of crimes and then that's not to mention prostitution and other types of sex for sale because the films in the pictures merely whet the appetite. And then there are the obviously other Vice-Consul called law. Well there's nothing to substantiate that certainly there's nothing here you can imagine how closely this story is being watched by the people who are opposed to it. The police and so on and if there was anything to link this story with

antisocial conduct such as that why you would have heard about it it would have been on the news. You are a parochial grammar school in the vicinity of the adult bookstore. How concerned are you. I'm very concerned about it as a I feel that the kids obviously notice it it's there. They walk by it coming to and from school and. In fact they were really the first ones to notice it. The police were informed through. The children that it was there. And so as a result they're watching and they're. Paying attention to our reaction to the story. And I think in a real sense than we were. We're being watched by the children. You know the story is there. I think they sense that. There's something there that really ought not to be there. It certainly has influenced many of our younger generation if we want young people to go up to and not look upon the women as sexual

objects. Then we have to be concerned about the bookstores and hardcore pornography because hardcore pornography and pornography in general as normal are teaching the truth about sex than science fiction teaches you about science. Science fiction is fiction. This fantasy today was so much exposure we've become so desensitized to it. And this is where the danger is because if you don't have any shame or some moral value as you come to accept everything that really is against nature and that as unnatural as being healthy it's generally bad for the fabric of a nation a nation is only held together when people care for each other and they don't use each other as a picketing of a store hurt business very

much. You know as a matter of fact the picketing of the store probably is the single most contributor to the success of the store. Good advertising. I don't think there's any question that in the beginning the store was just about ready to go under until the picketing started and then it became the next most famous thing in the area since Nagra falls. And. And it just took off and now it's everybody knows the Kenmore bookstore. I mean there's just no question everybody knows about. In all actuality silence has never accomplished anything and I can give you any examples all over where there is apathy there is no enforcement of the raws. There is no prosecution of the laws. There is no tightening of the lies. We have nap and silent and I'm very glad that we have now. What are your thoughts of Arlo's picketed sort of the marching in front of the store for a couple years. I think it's great. I mean I think that this is exactly what the First Amendment is all about. People are supposed to be able to express their views in a peaceful

fashion and in a way that attracts attention. And this is been a very effective way for these people to have their views become known. And I think that's good. Now on the other hand if people in the community adults want to avail themselves of this type of material want to make that kind of choice for themselves they should have the same right as the Picketts have to go out there and complain about the system. Has your department uncovered any criminal action either inside the store or outside the premises. Yes we've had a number of instances of. Disorderly conduct harassments the number of instances for instance where we've detected people urine ating in public places immediately outside of the building. Conversely there have been two instances where objects were thrown through the front window of the store so that it's kind of a two way street I guess.

What can you tell me about some of the clientele who frequent the store. Well we have made arrests of some people coming out of the place. The charges have been disorderly conduct. We had one instance of a young girl being harassed. A person would just exit the bookstore and instead he was found guilty and sentenced to do some time at the Erie County penitentiary. But that's essentially what we've been up to this week. There have been a few instances of some of the clients coming out and saying something to the kids walking by something like You know you ought to come in and take a look or things like that. Nothing of any. Real serious consequence that we've been able to notice but little things that. The kids have reported back to their parents just just as say

drug dealers try to get children to smoke pot. You'll find that there are other people who will influence young children to watch peep shows. To buy movies to get a camera if they need to. Because they're looking for a market and were influenced by words and pictures. And what it does is it leads to a high degree of immorality. For example prostitution and girls under the age of 18 is going up 217 percent in the last 10 years. You can blame it on the bookstore as well you can blame a lessening of morality which certainly bookstores by what the two huge magazines would foster see none of these books teach you about self-control. None of them did you or bug disease or the danger of pregnancy or the dangers that

promiscuity or infidelity will lead. Have you ever been inside the store. What have you observed. I've been in this inside the store many times because I feel I could not speak with conviction on a subject unless I had seen for myself what I was talking about. And I encourage others to go in the store on their own and before they take a stance on a social. I observed all types of pornographic material. Conceivable the peep show. Broods. Meeting place for homosexuals as far as the graffiti on the wall they invite one another to meet them in prayer cares with the parking lights on it's their signal so to speak. They mention meat in. Both number 12 for oral sexual activity. These are the type of things you observed used condom condoms and floor.

Tissues. And the like. It's quite embarrassing and I'm embarrassed I did not enjoy going in the store I do it only so that I know what I'm talking about. When atrophy of course is just materials that deal with sex obscenity is the thing that is. Prohibited by the law. I don't have an opinion one way or another that's not my job my job is to everybody has a constitutional right to an attorney. These people selected me. My business is 99 percent criminal defense and now and then I may get involved in a case like this I inherited this case from Merrill for my partner. But the point is that the jury in the community in Tonawanda decided that the materials were not obscene not me not a judge somewhere but a jury of average individuals off the street men and women young and old people who were very religious people who had normal religious proclivities. They decided collectively after a five day trial they

decided within five minutes that the films were not obscene. So I think they've really spoken in this way. So far it appears that the courts have lean toward the defendant or the law is weak in my opinion yes they're there and they're not explicitly. I think that somewhere along the way and probably going back. Perhaps as much as 10 years. The interpretations of First Amendment rights have led to a very liberal was in regards to pornography and obscenity and so forth. Again it's only my opinion when we work with what we have our laws are at least consistent diet have yet to see them not lean towards the defendant. You know in fact today one of the things that's happening throughout the country among legal scholars is a beginning to talk about victims rights because in this case the victims are going to be the people that live in that neighborhood in that area because they're going to suffer. And it's our conclusion as law enforcement officers that they have rights too and they have a right to a well-regulated

and peaceful community. And I think the courts are leaning away from their rights and towards the defendants eyen is much in favor of the First Amendment is is anybody. And I would not like to see you know the book burning that it was done in some countries in this kind of thing. I feel that we all have a right to express our opinions. But I also would like to think that some more along the line going back to the basic idea of being able to control our neighborhoods that we ought to in some way preserving the First Amendment rights still be able to control our environment. The laws are definitely weak as I've compared them to laws in other states and we are trying to amend. Those laws that we feel some teeth in them. One example the the state of

Ohio has a very effective law which makes a second absented a conviction a felony rather than a misdemeanor. An amendment to our penal code was introduced by Assemblyman challenger and Senator frost and is now pending in both houses. And we are we are supporting our law as best we can. Do you feel any action from the your district attorney's office or a grand jury might be forthcoming. Well I doubt it. I really think the district attorney is the. Have a higher sense of priority. They're not interested in in my opinion. Coming to a small store which restricts its clientele specifically to people who are 21 years of age and older. That doesn't display anything to the public's not offensive. For example you walk into a drugstore and these things hit you in the face and I don't think that's right. So the store does that sort of thing. It does it in a discreet and private manner that attempts to anyway. I think the

district attorney is more interested in trying to catch people who are burglarizing homes and selling drugs and killing people and mugging older people and so on. That's what they should be doing and not running around and deciding whether friend Luka can read a book. Because 25 vocal people in the community who will never go into that store in their lives and never be affected by it think you shouldn't read that book. This certainly should be regulations that at the least restrain such operations from operating in generally residential all areas. I think if we're going to allow them they should be allowed in areas where there will not be children present where there will not be residents will not be homeowners. They should not be allowed in areas where they can bring says serious deterioration to the area. As you know we have enough problems in this community with deteriorating neighborhoods. We don't need advice oriented businesses to maybe bring additional deterioration. Have you ever been threatened. Yes.

But. I don't like to talk about but I I've been threatened. A number of times. Death threats threats against my children. And. I fear for my children and for my children's future. And that is why I'm involved in this. I. I think the effect we have got to make our opinions known. We've got a lot our legislators. You know every level of government federal state local county that we are opposed to this type of material. In our communities that we want the laws tightened. That we want enforcement of the obscenity laws and prosecution of the obscenity laws and if we don't speak to. Her. It'll get worse tomorrow.