Business Owners Fighting Condom Distribution Plan

In most other places, something this personal and private would not be the subject of such a nasty public debate.

In West Hollywood, however, condom use is the major topic on next week’s municipal election ballot.

Voters are being asked to resolve a lingering squabble between the city and an anti-AIDS group over whether local bars and restaurants should be required to offer free condoms to patrons.

If a ballot initiative sponsored by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation passes Tuesday, as many as 152 bars, clubs, restaurants and hotels in the city will have to prominently display bowls of condoms and stacks of safe-sex literature near their front doors.

Business owners say that is forcing condoms in front of customers and is outrageous.

Initiative supporters say the AIDS epidemic makes Measure A a life-and-death matter.

City officials maintain that a recently expanded voluntary condom distribution plan that encourages local gay bars to provide condoms to customers works fine and doesn’t need changing.

But foundation leaders say the fishbowl condom containers now used by bars are often empty. They say patrons of non-gay bars and clubs on the busy Sunset Strip should also have access to condoms in light of escalating numbers of cases of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases in the Los Angeles area.

Foundation President Michael Weinstein describes West Hollywood as “the red light district of Los Angeles,” where unsafe sexual practices are rampant.

“I’m 48 years old. I don’t consider myself a prude.” But he says he sees straight young men and women from suburbia on Sunset Boulevard, obviously out for a good time on weekends. “These are the daughters of people in places like Monrovia. They’re meeting people and going home and having sex,” Weinstein added.

Known for its large population of gays and for a heavy gay representation on its City Council, West Hollywood for years has made condoms available without charge to gay bars, coffeehouses and bookstores as part of a $400,000-a-year AIDS health program.

Weinstein has pressed for wider distribution of condoms, however. In early 1999 he started a petition calling for expansion of the program. He dropped it a short time later, after encountering what he calls “a firestorm of opposition from the bars.”

Sixteen months ago, Weinstein revived the campaign. After that, City Council members briefly toyed with the idea of creating a mandatory condom distribution plan before voting instead for an expanded voluntary one.

Through the new program, the number of condoms given away annually jumped from about 72,000 to about 320,000.

But that’s still not enough, according to Weinstein--who last year collected enough signatures to put Measure A on Tuesday’s ballot.

If passed, the measure will require the city to hand out no fewer than 500,000 free condoms a year. All West Hollywood businesses that derive more than half their revenue from the sale of alcohol for on-site consumption will be required to offer free condoms, along with “safer sex literature,” to patrons. Those that fail to do so will risk losing their liquor licenses.

Opponents say the idea of the city’s prying any more deeply into businesses’ operations is unwholesome. Ditto for the idea of bowls of condoms in places patronized by families.

Even worse, the say, is the idea of the city’s condoms being wasted in places where those most at risk of infection don’t hang out.

“Are we going to create another level of bureaucracy and create more costs when the city already has a good program?” asked Rodney Scott, a political consultant who is running a shoestring “No on A” campaign financed by West Hollywood business owners.

Michael Niemeyer, owner of Micky’s, a popular Santa Monica Boulevard gay bar that for years has kept a bowl of free city-distributed condoms by its front door, said it is wasteful to place them “in places that don’t hit the target--gay young men.”

“Everybody likes the idea of condoms being available. But to make it mandatory, along with safe-sex literature, is wrong. This literature, with naked males having anal sex, is totally inappropriate for, say, a restaurant on Sunset Boulevard,” he said.

Niemeyer said Sunset Strip businesses such as the House of Blues and other “straight clubs” make condoms available on nights when gay events are staged.

Arich Berghammer, manager of the House of Blues--whose shows include a weekly “Sunday Gospel Brunch”--has predicted that the city “will have a fight on its hands” from business owners if distribution is made mandatory.

The foundation’s $150,000 “Yes on A--It’s a Lifesaver” campaign features slick mailers, some of which are aimed at straight women. Six mailers have been sent to each of the city’s 30,612 registered voters, and four more will be sent out before election day, foundation leaders say.

The Yes-on-A side claims endorsements from Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and Assemblyman Paul Koretz (D-West Hollywood), a former city councilman.

Business owners’ smaller “No on A--It’s a Trojan Horse” campaign plans to send one mailer in the coming days. Opponents say they have the backing of major gay groups and the endorsement of City Councilmen John Heilman, Sal Guarriello and Steve Martin.

Neutral in the debate is Mayor Jeffrey Prang, who is running for reelection. He joins eight other candidates battling for two council seats, one of which was recently vacated by Koretz. The other candidates are Jerome Cleary, John J. Duran, Tom DeMille, John Paul Drayer, James Fuhrman, Barbara Hamaker, Terry Morgan and Ruth Williams.