Is There A Legal Right To A Swing Party?
The municipality of Duncanville, Texas which is suburb of Dallas has been drawn in its own petite Jerry Falwell style holy scripture strip fight with the founders of a secluded “adult club” named “The Cherry Pit“. The Cherry Pit is a private mansion tucked in away in an expensive Duncanville suburban neighborhood. The Cherry Pit advertises on the internet and according to advertised news invites as many as 130 adults to a weekly gathering.
The Cherry Pit has been organizing girl orgies where guests pay a fee for entrance and could engage in pretty much any sort of sex actions they want on the site. It is the position of the owners that this does not constitute a “business” as the entrance money is to cover the price of snacks, beverages etc and not a charge for the privilege of engaging in sex from the tame to the “Pulp Fiction” apple in the mouth brand of entertainment…. It is said for an additional service fee they could even “bring out the gimp“….(just joking)
The entire deal started earlierin December of 2007 when after several years of Cherry Pitt neighbors complaining about the crime, traffic and “unsavory element” “the pit” was bringing to the area, the City of Duncanville passed the next order:
“the function and maintenance of a adult to be against the law and a public annoyance. Violation of the new regulation can effect in a fine of up to $2,000.”
The city of Duncanville after that decided that the gatherings at the Cherry Pit were more than just a meeting of “friends and family” looking for some enjoyment and determined that it was in fact a sexually oriented commerce and subject to the regulation. The reaction of Julie Norris, one of the owners of “The Pit” was the following:
“I don’t recognize what their meaning of a industry is, but to my understanding a business is public – anyone can simply 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 $5 or bring a bowl? That is exactly what we do. The only condition to get into my residence is that you call and let me know that you are coming and you are on my reservation list.”
Ms Norris went on to state that she believed that the ordinance is a guise to attack their way of life and values and that the regulation regulating the club violated their First Amendment Rights to Privacy.
“It boils down to people want to put their morality into my private dwelling and I have to stand against that,” Norris said. “That is not what the Constitution allows.”
The founders of the Cherry Pit afterward counter sued the city claiming the ordinance banning adult clubs violates their seclusion and due process rights. They are basically 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 in fact no right to personal privacy spelled out in the Constitution.
The Cherry Pit’s legal representative, Edward Kline, said the city tries to regulate private acts in a private house using the public nuisance law as a “pretext” to do so….
The Cherry Pitt has remained open while all the official squabbling has taken place… Only today the City of Duncanville broadened the regulation intended to shut the club down by making the explanation of a sex club more common and add a local plea process for adult clubs that the town orders to shut down.
***October 29, 2008 A jury found the owners of the Cherry Pit responsible of illegitimately operating a sexually oriented company.
So what you do think? Should private citizens be tolerated to “swap pits” at the Pitt without the government getting its’ rocks off?
You obviously can not do heroin in the privacy of your property. These things are illegal regardless of where they are engaged in.
Let us as well keep this in mind. Duncanville is NOT trying to regulate the mature older swingers showing up at the house. They are trying to control the owners of the house in cheering 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 colossal dissimilarity…
Nobody is going to advice you that you can not go down to your local red light area and get a BJ from Lily the local crack addict or Bobby the cross dressing pimp or even take any of parejas swingers to the Cherry Pit for some entertainment. We surely know however that the act of handing over a dollar in exchange for the blowjob makes the otherwise agreeable step illegal prostitution on one end and the illegal action of soliciting a prostitute on the other end no matter where it occurs (in addition to whatsoever other nasty doing goes with “the other end”). The state has decided that there is a forceful government awareness to normalize 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 company. The Cherry Pit has since been locked. While warnings for the owners stated that the conclusion would be appealed and the statute challenged, it is unclear if either of those was ever pursued.
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