A judge has sided with the City of Dallas over its decision to not allow a sexually-oriented business expo to be held next month at the city-owned convention center. The Dallas City Council had previously voted to keep the 2016 eXXXotica event out.
"Concluding that Three Expo has at most shown that the Convention Center is a limited public forum, and that the City has established that its decision to decline to contract with Three Expo a second time was both reasonable and viewpoint neutral, the court denies the motion," court documents released Thursday said.
The eXXXotica Expo was slated for May 20-22 at the convention center.
Dallas Police Chief David Brown has said his department didn’t observe any laws broken at eXXXotica when it came to the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center last year, but that’s not what specially-hired attorneys for the city argued in court on Monday.
"Although we're disappointed in today's decision, we did understand that getting the injunction would have been a very high legal hurdle," said eXXXotica promoter J. Handy. "We were obviously happy the judge denied the city's motion to dismiss and we look forward to moving ahead with the case.
"We are in this for the long haul. You can't put a time, or a dollar, limit on the freedom of speech."
Some Dallas city leaders -- including Mayor Mike Rawlings -- fought to keep eXXXotica out of the convention center next month. A one-minute video was a key part of their argument in federal court.
The video is under seal, but it was taken at the convention center during the eXXXotica event last August. Women in the video were wearing just enough lingerie to keep them from being fully nude, playing with whipped cream, and coming into contact with male guests with their “breasts & buttocks,” according to court filings.
That is of one of the primary reasons the Dallas City Council voted not to allow eXXXotica back this year.
“The first reaction is: Bring it to Houston, bring it to Austin,” Handy said. “We’re in Dallas. We were stripped of our rights in Dallas. We’ll get our rights back in Dallas.”
And it’s in a Dallas federal courtroom that attorney J. Michael Murray for eXXXotica argued that the City banned the expo strictly because of its content.
“The City Council took away our First Amendment rights to produce the event there,” Handy said.
Dallas City Attorney Warren Ernst agreed with Handy's reading of the law, and urged the council not to block the expo back in February.
The council, however, voted 8-7 to back Mayor Rawlings’ motion.
City Council member Scott Griggs voted against the resolution, and said the City has already paid nearly $250,000 on two outside attorneys for the case.
Alice Murray with Dallas Citizens Council sees the money as an investment against the objectification of women, and as a way to defend the City’s "brand."
“If we can protect even one person from domestic abuse or from sexual violence, that amount of money is warranted,” Murray said.
Katie Pedigo, CEO of domestic violence prevention group New Friends New Life, released the following statement:
New Friends New Life admires the Mayor’s leadership and supports the City Council members who have the courage to enforce our laws restricting the location of sexually oriented businesses, which protect Dallas and its citizens.
Mayor Mike Rawlings released the following statement Thursday after the judge's decision was made:
I am pleased with U.S. District Judge Sidney A. Fitzwater’s ruling that our City Council’s decision to ban this pornography expo was reasonable and not based solely on the subject matter. The judge acknowledged our strong evidence that this expo violated both terms of its contract and state and local laws. As noted in the ruling, our attorneys produced evidence of the expo’s commission of “fraud, crimes, breach of contract, and violations of the City’s [SOB] ordinance.”Many have criticized the City Council's decision and the cost to defend it. They predicted a quick loss in the courtroom. They were wrong.
While this case is not over and this ruling does not guarantee what would happen at trial, I am extremely proud of the seven City Council members who had the courage to support this ban. Thanks especially to Council member Adam McGough, an attorney whose sound legal argument at the City Council horseshoe regarding the application of our city’s Sexually Oriented Business Ordinance served as a key component of our defense in court.