The Law of Unintended Consequences Strikes Back!

Last night the Planning Board considered Cap Video’s site plan. So as to avoid any legal grounds for its submission to be denied, Cap Video naturally submitted the bare minimum necessary. Well, almost. It did submit a photo of that naughty bondage store front display from one of its other stores.

After the board and the public made it became clear that the photo was not helpful to its cause, Cap Video withdrew the photo as part of its submission, and submitted an oral representation that it would abide by the Victoria Secret standard. NPN will have to write to Victoria Secret and find out what that is! But we've all seen the store fronts in malls across the country. (I noticed the scantily clad and suggestive, but tasteful, dress of the manikins in the Fredricks of Hollywood store front tonight at the Ingleside Mall.)

Many of the board members were clearly uncomfortable finding the site plan acceptable, but they did do their duty, as they were constrained to do, and I commend them for that. With the window display withdrawn, the plan clearly complied with the legal requirements, including the 1,000 square ft. rule.

At the meeting, it quickly dawned upon them, and the public, that the passage of the anti-porn zoning ordinances this fall was a waste of valuable time and effort on the part of the City. Instead of focusing on the content of the wares to be sold in the privacy of the store, the City could have and should have instead focused on passing measures more specifically aimed at up scaling that area of King Street and other external concerns, as I urged it to do.

But this last fall and summer the City was driven by the stridently intolerant no-porn cabal lead by NPN and so it focused on measures based upon content and not the specific potential secondary effects external to the store we all sought to prevent. I'm sorry that it did not.

Yours/AC