Mayor, Husband Seize News Racks Offering Sex Publications

Pomona Mayor Donna Smith and her husband got tired of waiting for the city staff to crack down on three unlicensed news racks offering sexually oriented newspapers, so they took matters into their own hands Wednesday.

Smith and her husband, Robert, seized the news racks, loaded them on the back of their truck, drove to City Hall and dumped them on the steps.

The mayor explained that after waiting for months for the city staff to pick up the racks in front of the downtown post office, she had run out of patience. The racks had offered the Sun, L.A. X . . . Press and Hollywood Playmates.

“The bottom line is that I stole these illegal, pornographic machines,” Smith said.

Her husband interrupted: “No, you didn’t steal them. . . . You just wanted them out of there.”

The mayor then amended her statement, saying she had just taken the machines to a location “where I know they (the city staff) will do something about it.”

She was right. Shortly after the Smiths unloaded the racks from their pickup truck, two Public Works employees arrived to cart them off to the city yard.

Smith said the city was legally entitled to confiscate the racks because they were placed on a public right of way without the vendors’ having obtained business licenses.

The mayor and her husband, who coaches wrestling and other sports at Pomona’s Garey High School, said they were incensed that the sex publications were available to anyone--including children--who had 75 cents to put in the coin slot.

Jim Atwell, co-owner of the Sun and other sexually explicit publications, said his products are censored so that they can be sold on the sidewalk.

The Sun carries nude photos and ads for massage parlors, phone sex and similar businesses. But Atwell said he blocks out offensive portions of pictures.

Atwell said the vending machines are owned by independent contractors. But “if I owned the news racks, I would probably have the mayor arrested” for removing them, he said.

Smith said she was unperturbed by the publisher’s words.”Anyone who prints those types of newspapers is sick,” she said.