Word: hurlbut
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...prepares to graduate, Lee still maintains close ties to his family, who still live outside New Haven, Conn. Voll says that he speaks with his parents frequently by phone, and that he looks after after his younger brother, Lloyd, who this year was a freshperson living in Hurlbut...
...investigators gather evidence and make more arrests, Hurlbut browses through rows of Hefty Mamas, Leg Show, Bizarre Fantasies and other beckoning titles with the indifference of a hardened vice cop. "Victimless crime -- crap," he whispers. "Follow me." The white-haired Hurlbut eases his 225- lb. frame through an entrance marked PEEP SHOWS and into a darkened warren of viewing rooms. In each of the empty plywood cubicles, VCRs still hum, and the trappings of recent sexual activity abound. "The average guy has no idea what scumbags these places are," he snaps...
Though the raid is a success, the skin shop is open again in a matter of hours. That doesn't faze Hurlbut, who has lost his share of go-rounds with crafty defense lawyers. He'll simply try again. "Sex shops are like fungus," he says. "If we don't apply the antibiotic, they'll sprout again anywhere." For Hurlbut, the medicine involves marshaling public awareness and applying legal pressure. "We're not on a moral crusade," he insists. "The porn people are folks like you and me, trying to make a living. We just want them to obey...
Porn's big profits ensure that Hurlbut will never lack for work. The station wagon is now deep in the piney woods northeast of the city as he searches vainly for the site of another nude bar, one that he has chased from two other prospective locations. "We'll get him sooner or later," he chuckles. On the drive home, he wheels up to a fading stucco relic aside the four-lane. Shut down long ago, the nude club's blue canopy still flaps amid the weeds and litter, and a garish neon sign towers skyward. "Twenty warrants for prostitution...
...That, to Hurlbut, is what local activism is all about. "Ten years ago," he recalls, "people thought this filth was just something that came with the urban landscape. Now there's a consciousness that we don't have to stand by and let it happen...