New Orleans City Planning Commission has proposed strict legislation of New Orleans Adult Live Entertainment Venues & LGBTQ establishments. This legislation has been supported by petition from former Councilmember Kristin Gisleson Palmer and would result in the closure of most New Orleans Adult Live Entertainment Venues and several gay bars.



We, the undersigned, oppose the petition and proposed legislation on ethical, economic, and factual grounds.

Increased regulation/prohibition of ‘adult entertainment’ increases exploitation, unsafe and forced prostitution, trafficking, and other dangers for sex workers. If an action that people want or need to do is prohibited or limited, more problems are created than solved. Prohibition and tight regulation doesn’t decrease or eliminate behavior - but it does drastically impact the safety of those involved. State controlled sex work that happens only in limited, designated venues with special restrictions creates a two tiered system: legal and illegal work. Decreasing the number of adult venues will not decrease the number of people engaged in sex work, it will simply displace them to illegal, completely unregulated, and unsafe areas.

MOREOVER, we oppose the idea that sex work is inherently more degrading or exploitative than any other type of work. Sex work is work. It should be regulated to ensure the safety of those involved, but not overly burdened for moral reasons.

MOREOVER, this proposed legislation and petition disproportionately negatively affects members of marginalized populations. Sex work is often a survival strategy for ‘unpopular’ minority groups: people of color, migrants, LGBTQ people, etc. Laws against sex work have political support precisely because they target people that voters don’t want to see or know about. We oppose this cycle.

MOREOVER, this proposed legislation and petition disproportionately negatively affects members of the LGBTQ community. Included in the study were critiques of three gay establishments outside of the Vieux Carré Entertainment District. This equation of ‘gay’ to ‘sex work’ is inaccurate, and a cited reference to a link between adult venues and HIV transmission follows a long trend of using HIV related public safety to limit LGBTQ establishments.

MOREOVER, adult entertainment and sex work is an important economic driver in the French Quarter and New Orleans as a whole, providing significantly more in tax and tourism dollars than needed to enforce regulation and provide safety. We do not support this attempt to sanitize the French Quarter in order to increase property values (as several cited studies in the proposed legislation reference).

MOREOVER, the petition and proposed legislation makes numerous statements of random, unrelated negative facts, in an attempt to outrage the reader with irrelevant “scary” numbers. This is referred to as fear mongering, and does not help to improve our city, or make sex work safer.

We, the undersigned, oppose the current proposed legislation and petition in its content and methodology.

We expect that:

- Any adult of at least 18 years of age should be able to work within adult entertainment venues in any capacity.

- Performers should be able to work as they choose to work - as freelance performers, employees, or collectively bargaining agents, and should be provided a safe, crime free environment, and should not be allowed to be sexually harassed.

- The number of adult entertainment venues should not be decreased and new or reopened clubs should be allowed outside of the “adult live performance venue IZD”.

- No special tax/fee should be levied against the venues to pay for law enforcement or regulation.

- Enforcement of all regulations should be enforced by NOPD.

- No laws or regulations that harm or limit agency for marginalized populations will be considered or enacted by the City of New Orleans.

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Full study from New Orleans Planning Commission found here:

http://www.nola.gov/city-planning/major-studies-and-projects/adult-live-performance-venue-study/final-report/