County Fire Dept. Ends Ban on Playboy Magazines

The Los Angeles County Fire Department has quietly dropped a two-year effort to ban Playboy and other magazines featuring nude or skimpily clad women from firehouses, drawing praise from free speech advocates and criticism that the county is risking sex harassment lawsuits.

Starting next week, the department’s 2,390 male firefighters and 11 women will be permitted to quietly read any publication in most areas of a firehouse, including the bathroom, dormitory, kitchen and common living room.

However, sexually explicit materials will be forbidden in areas used by the public, including the office and the area where firetrucks are kept.

“Non-consensual sharing,” loosely defined as physically or verbally flaunting sexually explicit publications, will be prohibited in all areas of the firehouse, a department spokesman said.

The new policy was drawn up after a federal judge struck down a 1992 department order that forbade firefighters to read or possess Playboy in firehouses. The department appealed the ruling earlier this summer, but recently decided to withdraw the appeal after concluding that the higher court was unlikely to overturn the judge’s decision, county attorneys said.

The new rules were drawn up by a task force of female and male county firefighters, including Capt. Steve Johnson, the Antelope Valley-based firefighter who sued the department to lift the previous ban.

“I view this as a First Amendment victory for both sides,” said Johnson, a 27-year veteran stationed in the northwestern Antelope Valley community of Lake Los Angeles, where there are no women firefighters.

“It’s ludicrous that possession of Playboy constitutes sexual harassment.”

Female firefighters, two of whom publicly supported the ban and two of whom testified against it, refused to comment on the new policy. But the department’s decision not to return to court dismayed some members of Women in Fire Service, an international professional group. Women make up less than 2% of the 250,000 firefighters nationwide.

“Introducing any magazine of that sort into the workplace sexualizes relationships that should not be sexualized, and makes it more difficult for men and women to relate,” said Terese Floren, the group’s executive director. “We would have liked to have seen a ban like this be an option for every employer sincerely trying to stop sexual harassment in the workplace.”

As the loser in the lawsuit, the county must pay the plaintiff’s legal bills. Attorneys for Johnson and Playboy are seeking $300,000, an amount that could be substantially reduced in negotiations, county attorneys said.

County Fire Chief P. Michael Freeman supports the new policy, but with reservations, he said.

“We feel the court really put us in a Catch-22,” Freeman said. “We’re still responsible for creating a non-hostile work environment, but the order limited our ability to accomplish that.”