Do You Have A Legal Right To A Swing Party?
The municipality of Duncanville, Tx which is outscirts of Dallas has been drawn in its own petite Jerry Falwell style holy scripture strip battle with the owners of a private “adult club” called “The Cherry Pit“. The Cherry Pit is a private dwelling tucked in away in an upscale Duncanville residential community. The Cherry Pit publishes on the web and according to announced news invites as many as 140 swingers to a weekly party.
The Cherry Pit has been throwing couples parties where guests pay a charge for admission and are able get involved in mosly any type of sexualgroup sex deeds they want on the location. It is the position of the hosts that this does not constitute a “business” as the entrance fee is to cover the expence of food, beverages etc and not a cost for the opportunity of engaging in sex from the tame to the “Pulp Fiction” apple in the mouth brand of entertainment…. It is whispered for an extra service fee they will even “bring out the gimp“….(just joking)
The entire thing started backin December of 2006 when after several years of Cherry Pitt neighbors complaining about the offence, parties and “unsavory element” “the pit” was bringing to the neighborhood, the City of Duncanville passed the subsequent decree:
“the function and maintenance of a club to be unlawful and a public irritation. Violation of the new decree will outcome in a fine of up to $2,000.”
The city of Duncanville then decided that the events at the Cherry Pit were more than simply a party of “friends and family” seeking some excitement and determined that it was Really a sexually oriented industry and subject to the law. The answer of Julie Norris, one of the owners of “The Pit” was the following:
“I don’t know what their meaning of a commerce is, but to my understanding a business is public – anyone can just walk into it and you must pay to get in and we are none of that,” Norris said. “I accept donations. Have you ever had your friends over for a booze and asked everybody to pitch in $10 or bring a bowl? That is precisely what we do. The only condition to get into my residence is that a person call and let me know that you are coming and you are on my reservation list.”
Ms Norris continued to state that she assumed that the regulation is a guise to assault their way of life and beliefs and that the rule regulating the club violated their First Amendment Rights to Privacy.
“It boils down to people want to put their ethics into my own dwelling and I have to stand against that,” Norris said. “That is not what the Constitution allows.”
The founders of the Cherry Pit subsequently counter sued the city claiming the regulation banning adult clubs violates their confidentiality and due process rights. They are mostly using the same argument under which a right to privacy was found under Roe v. Wade. They have to use this scheme in making the right to privacy argument because there is basically no right to personal privacy spelled out in the Constitution.
The Cherry Pit’s attorney, Ed Klein, said the city tries to regulate private acts in a private house using the public irritation law as a “pretext” to do so….
The Cherry Pitt has remained open while all the official squabbling has taken place… Just now the City of Duncanville broadened the regulation meant to lock the club down by making the definition of a adult club more common and add a local petition process for sex clubs that the town orders to close.
***October 29, 2008 A jury proclaimed the organizers of the Cherry Pit guilty of illegitimately operating a sexually oriented business.
So what do you think? Should private citizens be tolerated to “swap pits” at the Pitt without the government getting its’ rocks off?
You evidently can’t do drugs in the seclusion of your apartment. These things are illegal regardless of where they are engaged in.
Let us also keep this in mind. Duncanville is NOT trying to regulate the adult dating in Dallas showing up at the venue. They are attempting to order the owners of the place in encouraging the “Piters” to engage in sex for a fee at their home…. The state is NOT regulating where and with whom you can have sex with. They are telling the owners of the Pit that if they are charging you to do it, they are subject to state control. There is a vast difference…
No one is going to advice you that you should not go down to your neighborhood red light district and get a BJ from Lily the local crack addict or Johnny the cross dressing pimp or even take any of sexo de parejas to the Cherry Pit for some entertainment. We of course know however that the act of handing over a dollar in trade for the quickie makes the otherwise consenting step illegal prostitution on one end and the illegal act of soliciting a prostitute on the other end no matter where it happens (in addition to whatsoever other wicked stuff goes with “the other end”). The state has decided that there is a forceful state interest to control and/or criminalize such acts…
***October 29, 2008 A jury found the owner of the Cherry Pit guilty on 10 counts of running a sexually oriented commerce. The Cherry Pit has since been shut down. While warnings for the owners stated that the verdict would be appealed and the statute challenged, it is uncertain if either of those was ever pursued.