Studies Condemn Adult Businesses

* Jonathan Webb accused me of failing to provide support for my statement (“Cities Must Take a Strong Stand Against Adult Businesses,” Orange County Voices, Jan. 14) regarding the detriment (i.e., illegal activities) connected with sexually oriented businesses.

In the interest of brevity, I omitted from the article reference to the numerous studies--including those made by Austin, Texas; Indianapolis; Garden Grove; Los Angeles; Phoenix; Seattle and the “Report of the Minnesota Attorney General’s Working Group on the Regulation of Sexually Oriented Businesses”--which have found a direct correlation between sexually oriented businesses and the adverse secondary effects which invariably afflict the community.

Most amusing, however, was Webb’s subsequent leap from this complaint to state that “there is a clear link between lawyers and white-collar crime.” Other than his own unsupported opinion, Webb offered no proof of the relationship of lawyers to white-collar crime. Nor does he provide any evidence of the magnitude of this “problem.”

Webb also criticized me for my concern regarding sexually oriented businesses while not pursing regulation of the tobacco industry. I agree with Webb that there are many ills in our society; however, the scope of my article was an attempt to look at only one of them, not to cure all of them.

If there is any abuse of the legal system, as Webb fears from my ideas, it comes from those who prefer to hide behind the robes of judges who are involved in “legislation” from the bench, rather than engage in an intellectually honest and forthright debate in the legislature.

MARK R. MATTHEWS

Fountain Valley