Is There A Legal Right To A Swing Party?
The city of Duncanville, Texas that is outscirts of Dallas has been drawn in its own small Jerry Falwell style holy scripture strip fight with the owners of a secret ”swinger couples club” called “The Cherry Pit“. The Cherry Pit is a private house tucked in away in an upscale Duncanville housing area. The Cherry Pit promotes on the internet and according to published reports draws as many as 160 swingers to a weekend party.
The Cherry Pit has been holding swingers parties adult where visitors pay a fee for admission and are allowed get involved in pretty much any kind of sexualgroup sex deeds they want on the site. It is the position of the owners that this does not constitute a “business” as the entrance price is to cover the expence of snacks, soft drinks etc and not a price for the privilege of engaging in sex from the tame to the “Pulp Fiction” apple in the mouth brand of entertainment…. It is whispered for an additional service charge they could even “bring out the gimp“….(just kidding)
The whole deal started backin November of 2007 when after several years of Cherry Pitt neighbors complaining about the crime, parties and “unsavory element” “the pit” was bringing to the community, the City of Duncanville approved the next ordinance:
“the operation and maintenance of a club to be against the law and a public annoyance. Violation of the new ordinance will result in a fine of up to $2,000.”
The city of Duncanville after that decided that the parties at the Cherry Pit were more than just a gathering of “friends and family” seeking some enjoyment and determined that it was in fact a sexually oriented commerce and subject to the decree. The answer of Julie Norris, one of the owners of “The Pit” was as follows:
“I don’t know what their classification of a industry is, but to my understanding a business is public – anybody can simply walk into it and you must pay to get in and we are none of that,” Norris said. “I accept contributions. Have you ever had your friends over for a grill and asked everyone to pitch in $10 or bring a dish? That is just what we do. The only condition to get into my home is that a person call and let me know that you are coming and you are on my reservation list.”
Ms Norris went on to state that she understood that the order is a excuse to attack their lifestyles and beliefs and that the rule regulating the club violated their First Amendment Rights to Privacy.
“It boils down to people want to put their principles into my personal territory and I am going to 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 adult 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 actually no right to personal privacy spelled out in the Constitution.
The Cherry Pit’s legal advisor, Edward Klein, said the city is trying to regulate private acts in a private dwelling using the public nuisance law as a “pretext” to do so….
The Cherry Pitt has stayed open while all the official wrangling has taken place… Just today the City of Duncanville broadened the order designed to shut the club down by making the explanation of a sex club more general and add a local petition process for couples clubs that the city orders to close.
***October 29, 2008 A jury proclaimed the organizers of the Cherry Pit responsible of illegitimately operating a sexually oriented company.
So what do you think? Should private citizens be allowed to “swap pits” at the Pitt without the government getting its’ rocks off?
You evidently can’t do drugs in the privacy of your apartment. 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 swinger personals in Texas showing up at the house. They are attempting to control the hosts of the club in allowing 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 state punishment. There is a colossal dissimilarity…
Nobody is going to advice you that you can not go down to your local red light district and get a blowjob from Sallie the local crack addict or Bobby the cross dressing pimp or even take any of casadas buscando to the Cherry Pit for some entertainment. We surely know nonetheless that the act of handing over a dollar in exchange for the blowjob makes the otherwise agreeable doing illegal prostitution on one end and the illegal act of soliciting a prostitute on the other end no matter where it happens (in addition to whatsoever other disgusting stuff goes with “the other end”). The government has decided that there is a compelling government concern to control 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 advice for the owners stated that the verdict would be appealed and the statute challenged, it is vague if either of those was ever pursued.