from www.dailynews.com – L.A. residents may decide in June whether actors in pornographic movies must wear condoms. That is until, City Attorney Carmen Trutanich’s legal bid to stop the initiative succeeds. Trutanich’s contention is that only the state can regulate such matters. He’s got a good point and may well be saving the city from the folly of its City Council.

The state has rules for occupational safety – porn stars, after all, have occupations – and that agency, the Division of Occupational Safety and Health, should be in charge of regulating condom use in porn movies, Trutanich maintains. The state already mandates testing for HIV.

It’s hard to imagine that voters, faced with far more important issues, such as a presidential election, would much care who wears condoms and where they wear them. For most people, the health of porn actors is a remote issue – not to mention a personal choice. And does a city that can’t police medical marijuana dispensaries or rogue billboards hope to enforce a law to wear condoms on movie sets?

But the intra City Hall wrangle could become moot if the group behind the city initiative it is successful in a countywide initiative. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is gathering signatures for a ballot measure that would mandate that L.A. County porn movie producers get health permits, just as owners of tattoo parlors, massage parlors and bathhouses must do. It would require condom use as well.

This makes a bit more sense. The county is tasked with public health, after all, but it still comes down to a question of enforcement and compliance. While producers of porn movies would be required to pay for inspections, and face fines if they violated the law, profits for adult movies are such that even a proposed $1,000 fine would be worth the risk of being caught. And what’s to say that as soon as the inspector leaves the set the condoms wouldn’t come off?

The San Fernando Valley is a major center for porn movie production, so there’s justification behind requiring a county health permit.

The goal of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation – to combat the spread of AIDS and thus spare as many people from contracting the horrible disease – is virtuous. But considering that the porn industry already operates on the fringes, it’s hard to believe that any new law that’s easy to thwart would get much compliance.