clerk reading out the wording of the proposed ordinance could not stop herself from giggling as she read about the new requirement to stop monitoring patrons’ sexual activities.
Tue Aug 4, 2020 – 8:10 pm EST
August 4, 2020 (American Thinker) — On July 21, by unanimous vote, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance to amend the city’s existing health code to do away with two rules for sex clubs. These rules were put in place in 1984, at the height of the AIDS crisis. One was a requirement that the clubs could no longer have private rooms or locked doors in areas reserved for sex. The other was that management had to monitor sexual activity. The ostensible reason, believe it or not, was to help San Francisco‘s economy.
The meeting at which the supervisors voted is available online. It’s notable for the fact that the clerk reading out the wording of the proposed ordinance could not stop herself from giggling as she read about the new requirement to stop monitoring patrons’ sexual activities. The new ordinance was passed without discussion.
The proposed ordinance itself gives a little of the history behind the vote. The 1984 limitations on bathhouse conduct (i.e., no locked doors, supervised sex) meant that most bathhouses closed. New public health rules in 1997 put similar restrictions on all commercial sex clubs and sex parties. However, thanks to modern medicine, HIV is less transmittable and more treatable. (It is still transmittable and incurable, of course.)
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