PORTSMOUTH, New Hampshire — A crackdown on a city ordinance regulating porn shop video viewing booths has closed the 5th Wheel adult store and pulled the plug on viewing booths at two other adult novelty stores.
City attorney Bob Sullivan said the action came as a result of a routine inspection by health inspector Kim McNamara, who found violations of the ordinance in all three of the city’s porn stores. The ordinance, he said, requires the video viewing booths to be well lit, clean, have no holes in the walls and be visible from all common areas of the stores.
“The ordinance is intended to protect public health,” said Sullivan. “These have proven to be places where there is anonymous sexual activity and indiscriminate dispersal of bodily fluids. By requiring the booths to be lighted and visible from common areas of the business, the theory is that anonymous sexual activity will decrease.”
Moonlight Reader owner Del Paone pictured] said he built the six video viewing booths in his Rt. 1 bypass store “three or four years ago” under strict supervision by city inspectors and with the city’s approval. Now, he said, he doesn’t understand why the city has given him ten days to submit a plan for the viewing areas complying with the ordinance.
Sullivan said the health inspector found the violations during “routine” inspections and the action followed. The most egregious violations, including the discovery of bodily fluids, were found at the 5th Wheel, said Sullivan, adding it was closed under “mutual agreement.”
In April 2007, notices from the Web site Craigslist, inviting sexual encounters at the 5th Wheel, were mailed to the Herald. Owner Linda Rossetti said she disapproved and promised to take remedial action.
A sign on the 5th Wheel front door Monday said it was “closed for plumbing issues.”
Across the bypass, a pair of signs hung on either side of the three-foot entryway to the Moonlight Reader’s video booth section, both reading “closed.”
None of that store’s booths can be seen from the rest of the store, where adult videos and novelties are for sale.
Paone said he met city mandates requiring him to install video cameras in the hallway leading to the booths, which can be monitored from the front desk. Signs around the area warn that no more than one person is allowed in a booth at a time and clerk Scott Strohmeyer said part of his job is monitoring the area.
That includes watching from the desk to see red lights activated when someone slips a dollar bill into a viewing booth video player and using an intercom to scold anyone breaking rules.
Paone said he’s complying to meet the city’s demands, but consulting with his attorney in the meantime.
The owner of other adult stores in Mass. and N.H., Paone won a $1 million judgement against the city of Revere, Mass. in 1994, after a judge decided the city could not zone him out of business. Paone said he still hasn’t been paid and his legal bills for that one case are expected to approach $2 million.
“I don’t make any money on these (video) booths,” he said. “I’ve turned it over to my attorney, but if it’s up to me, I’ll just shut them down.”