Word: houstons
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Public pressure has prompted Houston police to develop one of the nation's largest antiporn squads, with eleven officers, and has given Houston courts the dubious honor of apparently leading the U.S. in the number of porn cases tried (200) and the percentage of defendants convicted (91%). Sergeant William Brown, head of the city's vice squad, calls the antiporn crusade his city's "No. 1 priority." Says Brown: "Twenty years ago, all we saw was black-and-white movies. Now we're seeing live sex onstage. What's next? Sex with children...
Moral outrage is only one of Houston's concerns. The sex arcades have also become "a prime center for the transmission of disease," says Dr. James Haughton, director of the Houston health and human services department. Nearly 11% of the 214 cases of syphilis detected by one city clinic in the first quarter of this year have been tracked to the arcades. Now the spread of AIDS has intensified Houston officials' fears about the anonymous sex parlors, which cater to homosexuals...
...Houston does have location restrictions on certain sex businesses under a 1983 city ordinance, but establishments that were in operation before the law was enacted escaped regulation, while others simply ignore it. Although civic protests, police actions and a more recent ordinance governing the operation of the sex arcades have produced some small victories over the porn merchants, police say that only a few arcades have closed. Mayor Kathy Whitmire, who promoted the antiarcade ordinance, is seeking re-election on Nov. 5, and her opponent, former Houston Mayor Louie Welch, has made the proliferating sex industry a major election issue...
Despite the increasingly vocal public concern, laissez-faire Houston does not appear to be at all ready to enact the sort of comprehensive zoning laws that have helped contain the porn industry in some other cities. After closing down one particularly offensive club, Civic Activist Frank Phelps, 65, said that even though many sex-prone businesses remained in his area, residents could "live with what we've got." The remaining joints, said Phelps, "don't have the hideous signs up, and they don't advertise, and they are down near the freeway, away from the residential area." Translation...
...than invest it. Nonetheless, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 38, the basketball superstar for the Los Angeles Lakers, hopes to become a savvy financier. He is now a member of a partnership that includes eight current and former basketball players. Among Abdul-Jabbar's investor mates are Ralph Sampson of the Houston Rockets and Terry Cummings of the Milwaukee Bucks. Their first investment was the $1 million Redmont Hotel in Birmingham, which they are spending nearly $5 million to remodel. A $22 million Los Angeles health club is under construction. The group is also negotiating to buy the Inn of Laguna...