Do You Have A Legitimate Right To A Swing Party?
The city of Duncanville, Texas which is outscirts of Dallas has been drawn in its own little Jerry Falwell style bible belt battle with the owners of a privileged ”swinger couples club” named “The Cherry Pit“. The Cherry Pit is a private manor tucked in away in an fashionable Duncanville suburban district. The Cherry Pit posts on the web and according to published information invites as many as 150 visitors to a weekend gathering.
The Cherry Pit has been organizing swingers party sex where guests pay a charge for entry and are able engage in almost any sort of sex actions they want on the premises. It is the position of the hosts that this does not constitute a “business” as the entrance charge is to cover the cost of food, 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 rumored for an extra service money they could even “bring out the gimp“….(just a joke)
This whole deal happened earlierin November 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 following regulation:
“the function and maintenance of a swinger to be illegal and a public annoyance. Violation of the new decree can result in a fine of up to $3,000.”
The city of Duncanville after that decided that the events at the Cherry Pit were more than simply a meeting of “friends and family” seeking some fun and determined that it was in fact a sexually oriented business and subject to the law. The respond of Julie Norris, one of the owners of “The Pit” was as follows:
“I do not comprehend what their definition of a commerce is, but to my understanding a business is public – anybody can simply walk into it and you shall pay to get in and we are none of that,” Norris said. “I accept donations. Have you ever had your friends over for a Party and asked everybody to pitch in $10 or bring a dish? That is precisely what we do. The only condition to get into my home is that anyone 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 order is a guise to assault their lifestyles and beliefs and that the order regulating the club violated their First Amendment Rights to Privacy.
“It boils down to people want to put their ethics into my private territory and I will stand against that,” Norris said. “That is not what the Constitution allows.”
The founders of the Cherry Pit after that counter sued the city claiming the decree banning swingers clubs violates their solitude 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 in fact no right to personal privacy spelled out in the Constitution.
The Cherry Pit’s legal advisor, Edward Kline, said the city tries to regulate private acts in a private home using the public nuisance law as a “pretext” to do so….
The Cherry Pitt has remained open while all the legal wrangling has taken place… Only now the City of Duncanville broadened the order meant to lock the club down by making the classification of a sex club more general and add a local appeal procedure for adult clubs that the town orders to close.
***October 29, 2008 A jury proclaimed the founders of the Cherry Pit accountable of illegitimately operating a sexually oriented company.
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 not do drugs in the isolation of your house. These things are illegal regardless of where they are engaged in.
Let us as well keep this in mind. Duncanville is NOT attempting to control the Texas adult dating personals showing up at the house. They are trying to order the hosts of the club in encouraging the “Piters” to engage in sex for a fee at their home…. The government 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 government punishment. There is a vast dissimilarity…
Nobody is going to tell you that you cant go down to your neighborhood red light block and get a blowjob from Lily the local crack addict or Eddie the cross dressing pimp or even take any of parejas swingers to the Cherry Pit for some fun. We surely are aware of nonetheless that the act of handing over a dollar in trade for the blowjob makes the otherwise agreeable act illegal prostitution on one end and the illegal action of soliciting a prostitute on the other end no matter where it happens (in addition to whatever other grose doing goes with “the other end”). The state has decided that there is a compelling state awareness to regulate 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 industry. The Cherry Pit has since been locked. While advise for the owners declared that the conclusion would be appealed and the statute challenged, it is uncertain if either of those was ever pursued.