One of the most easily foreseeable consequences of Los Angeles County’s new ordinance requiring porn actors to wear condoms was the flight of the industry to other jurisdictions, either across the county line, state boundaries or even international borders.
Sure enough, Los Angeles film permits for pornographic movies have plummeted since the law’s passage in late 2012. That year, there were 485 permit applications; in 2013, that number dropped to 40. As reported by the Los Angeles Times, just 20 permit applications have been filed so far this year.
Not surprisingly, L.A.’s loss has been Las Vegas’ gain. Some of those productions are moving here. It’s hard to know just how many, because Nevada requires permits only for filming in certain places. Private-property shoots don’t require permits in the Silver State.
Whether this is good news for Nevada depends on who you talk to. As a matter of policy, elected officials want nothing to do with the adult entertainment industry; sexually explicit films are not eligible for Nevada’s film tax credits. That said, the industry already has a significant presence in Southern Nevada.
But just because adult films are leaving L.A. doesn’t mean L.A. has left them: The organization that was the driving force behind the condom law has filed a complaint with Nevada’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration against a Los Angeles company that shot a video here, sans condoms. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation complains that video producer Cybernet Entertainment [a.k.a. Kink.com] didn’t use condoms in the filming of “Vegas Road Trip.” (There’s a reason for that: porn customers prefer to not see condom use in the films they buy.)
Leave a Comment