I am a big fan of your blog and I check it out daily. I find it almost laughable that porn studios in CA wanna go and do business in Las Vegas. Like seriously, the only time the porn industry is invited is only if they are doing awards shows and conventions.
In addition, I think Las Vegas and NV have much stricter rules about sex work, like weekly STI test and that they require all sex workers to be certified and wear condoms. And you gotta add the Mafia and the Cartels into this too. None of them will be too thrilled about porn studios trying to do business here.
Add to the fact Peter has CA-OSHA fines that he will not win an appeal on, and NV OSHA will not give him a break. Hell, the Las Vegas City Council and Commissions will not even give him a business license no matter how much money he has.
It is in Peter’s best interest to stay in CA, pay the CA-OSHA fines, and comply. And if he can’t do that, he just need to shut down and head back to England
peace&love,
mystiq
I think the commenter that said this was more about Peter cashing in on the office real estate boom in SF than about condom laws pretty much hit the nail right on the head its ALWAYS about the money. Time will tell….I have tried to get Las vegas Nayor Carolyn Goodman to comment on this, and so far her office hasn’t gotten back to me.
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Mike: You want to get the attention of the Mayor, City Council, or governor of Nevada, you don’t want to contact them. You want the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Carson City Nevada Appeal, or one of the televisions stations to contact them. It’s a big sexy headline: Is Sin City ready to roll out the welcome mat for porn?
You get the local news folks interested in this story, and the government has to respond.
Ya know BT yer absolutely right and I should have seen that myself…
TY for leading this old war horse back to the water…;)
This is a legitimate news story – actually it’s a great news story, both because of and despite the fact that it involves naked men and women having sex.
There is that angle, which would especially interest TV news viewers. However, there’s a trends angle, with businesses already departing California for Nevada or new businesses choosing Nevada over California for whatever reason. For instance, the distribution business is heavily locating warehouses in Nevada rather than California for west coast distribution because of the cost of land and regulation. Now, porn wants to pick up its tent and move lock, stock and barrel to Nevada. And, leading the charge is one of the most extreme versions of porn, Kink. This isn’t Vivid or Wicked Pictures. This is Kink, saying it wants to relocate to Nevada so it can electrocute, publicly humiliate and ball gag naked women without OSHA looking over its shoulder.
And, that leads to the second reason this is a great story – regular businesses are relocating to Nevada for lower costs of living, lower taxes and less regulation. Pornography wants to leave California to escape regulation. So be it. But if its going to choose Nevada, how will Nevada regulate the industry? Will it view it like prostitution and require weekly testing and condoms? Will it view it like mainstream entertainment and make sure that it is OSHA compliant? Will unions rule on set? Will it view it as a new revenue stream, and require lots of shooting permits with fees? Or will it take a What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas point of view and turn a blind eye?
Since porn is such a California thing as an industry, and is pretty much under the radar everywhere else, most states probably haven’t thought about these things even though they’re standard operating procedure for any other business.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Representative Hall’s office, or AHF’s, isn’t already talking to a state legislature somewhere in Nevada. Or an OSHA office.
If I was a state like Nevada and I was going to open my doors to the pornography industry because it was a pariah somewhere else, I’d make damn sure I got some money in return. I’d legalize it, and tax and permit fee the hell out of it.
Sorry, I can’t shut up. The third reason this is a fantastic and timely story for a local news reporter. The 2016 Republican primary is going to be held in Las Vegas. If I were an enterprising Las Vegas newspaper reporter, I’d be asking state officials if they have qualms about relocating the pornography industry while hosting the Republican primary and I’d be asking the RNC, Harry Reid and any declared Republican presidential candidate what is their position on pornography.
@Bt
Do you know if NV filming permits? Was curious when Douglas sources news articles vs. Commercial CO or some other type of data to indicate the prevalence of migration.
This argument always confounds me, whether it’s being made here or by Hall’s office. You do realize that major companies, gay and straight, have been shooting in Vegas for years. And it’s not just LA companies flying people in and out. Companies have been headquartered there since way before Measure B. And it’s not like Nevada is unaware — do you think that local news missed the AP articles, the NPR piece, or any of the other hundreds of Porn-Industry-Moving-to-Vegas stories that have come out in the past year?
Doesn’t matter to me where you fall on condoms, Kink or Cal/OSHA — saying that the industry can’t shoot in Vegas is like denying climate change. It’s been there for years.
Nick Steele from Bluebird Films claims he got the Las Vegas city council to approve their move to Las Vegas. But then again, he’s a jackass so who knows if that stupid fucker is telling the truth.
A few people have been shooting in vegas recently and in the case of Ray Pistol and Arrow he has been in Vegas for years. I have been shooting in Atlanta for 25 years but that doesnt mean Atlanta would sit still if the porn industry started making noise about moving here.
there are mixed stories about companies attempting to move shooting to Vegas as well, it seems you have to, shall we say, know the right people.
it does seem to me that fleeing CA to set up shop in Vegas is jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. I believe that money and effort would be better spent working out a viable solution to the problems rather than just inviting the problems to follow you to Nevada.
That said I still maintain that the move with the armory is more about the money and way less about the regulation.
@mikestabile. I understand your post. I’m sure porn has been in Nevada for years, just as I’m sure that at some level, porn is probably everywhere. Heck, I live in a small town in the middle of nowhere in a rural state and there was a local company that produced and distributed “girly” magazines up and down the East Coast.
I think what’s different about the move this time is that a.) politically, Nevada is positioning itself as a conservative, Tea Party state and is about to host the Republican Convention – a spotlight will shine on the state, b.) this is a high profile move – not just Kink but the entire industry. That said, you can’t discount Kink making it higher profile because what they do potentially becomes the standin for the entire industry, just as Rob Black and Extreme were the standin for the entire industry when Nightline took on porn (and we know how that worked out for Black), and c.), they’re threatening to move enmasse in order to skirt regulations that potentially put the health of employees at risk.
If porn wanted to move to Nevada and fly under the radar, that’s one thing. But, this is a big move that’s being announced publicly. That’s never a good thing for an industry that may be seen as unsavory.
Believe me, Peter would much rather keep the business in San Francisco. There’s a vibrant BDSM community here and the Armory is iconic — that’s not something you can replace. Not to mention all the energy that was put into refurbishing it, and years of building incredible sets. A move to Vegas is a plan B, and one that no one really wants to do if there’s another way around it.
Yeah, except it’s Nevada, not South Carolina or Iowa. I mean, even if we talk conservatives, we’re talking Sin City, not Heritage USA. Nevada is one of the most libertarian states in the country. Don’t forget that during the Measure B push, Republicans were the ones that came out to oppose the Measure.
Just have them all relocate to Las Vegas and when the Repubs come to town, have major porn bust take place to show that the Vice boys are on the job and making examples of arrest and convictions.
Fuck Vegas. I wouldn’t fuck with those assholes.
Outside of Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada is a pretty conservative state, with a very sizeable Mormon population. If some companies made a publicized move, I have no doubt that the state legislature would pass laws that would be similar to California’s.
Maybe they’d get rid of the brothels, too. Perhaps those too have gone unnoticed by the Mormon legislature.
The brothels have strict guidelines as far a condoms and STD testing and they are in a tiny, tiny area of the state. You don’t think that porn companies would be subject to the same guidelines as brothels if they made their way to Las Vegas and opened up studios? While it’s true that porn has been shot in Vegas for years, it’s gone unpublicized and unnoticed, I think big name companies making big announcements of bringing a large scale productions would change that.
Also, wouldn’t these companies have to deal with the unions, who are king in Las Vegas?
Is Nick Steele actually Nicholas Steele, former director for Adam and Eve (Nick is a nickname for Nicholas)? I have been wondering where he ended up.
@mikestabile @dodogoodman –
I think this is where the issue gets confused… So, you’re going to leave CA because of a condom mandate and move to a state that has legal brothels that are fully regulated (including testing and condoms) and expect to just walk in with no regulations whatsoever and rely on protection from the first amendment, which hasn’t seemed to help with regulations in CA?
Plus, there’s alot of talk currently about the sex worker licensing requirements in Nevada.
Why not just stay in California?
It doesn’t make any sense? I have a hard time understanding how Nevada is fully accepting of legal prostitution with strict regulations, but the porn industry wouldn’t be held to the same standards in protecting the workforce and public-at-large?
To be honest, I think the best thing Ackworth could do would be to rent out the Armory as office space… sit back while making a shitload of money and cut his losses.
RT @fair4ca: Kink Won’t last Long In Vegas – Reader Mail http://t.co/NkWGfqYLcP via @MikeSouth1226 #AB1576 #condoms #porn #CalOSHA #HIV #ST…
@mikestabile
Yes I realize porn is shot in all fifty states which is why I was a bit confounded that Douglas relied on media to source migration. I also realize that absence of enforcement doesn’t negate the applicability of OSHA in those fifty states.
The biggest mystery to me is why the industry is still using arguments their practices directly refute. 17,500 scenes no HIV transmission vs five daily diagnosis in LA Cty…sounds good if you don’t know the scene data includes gay/condom and is limited to HIV.
A couple of things to bring to the table here, reasons why the original poster likely doesn’t have the full story.
Most people don’t realize that “las vegas” the city is only the downtown area and everything up to the “worlds largest souvenir stand” at East Sahara. The strip, the industrial area where all the strip clubs and adult book stores are, the airport… all that stuff ISN’T in the City of Las Vegas and as a result, the city doesn’t hold any power over it at all. The City of Las Vegas can jump up and down and stamp it’s feet, but it’s unlikely that Kink would have ended up in the actual city limits to start with.
Second, being in “Vegas” doesn’t mean being in vagas, It’s the same as the brothels, none of which are IN Vegas, but many exist to serve Vegas. Kink could very easily locate just outside the county and be even one step further away from the NIMBY types. Nevada is very big, that is for sure.
I do agree however that the condom laws and fines are perhaps an excuse for Kink getting away from a building that they cannot truly support anymore in San Fran. Simply put, it’s worth way more as offices than it is as a dungeon (it’s worth more as a flat empty piece of land for that matter). They can move to Nevada where there is a near endless amount of cheap real estate to be had, and they can live off the income from selling the armory for many years to come.
Absolutely, but the problem is no one is buying that porn is just going to pick up and move to Nevada with no one questioning the regulation factors.
So, then it becomes: do you want to be regulated in CA or do you want to be regulated in NV? IMO, I think the self-regulation days are over.
There’s plenty of porn already filming in Vegas. Straight porn stud Johnny Castle has moved into a house at the old Vegas Country Club and regularly films there. I’ve also seen videos filmed in one of the condos in the tower at the Country Club. The websites PureMature and FantasyHD are headquartered in Vegas. On the gay side, CorbinFisher has been filming in Vegas for over a year and is headquartered there.
I suspect Peter is doing well financially. He has been hiring for more than two years now from what I have read, in that time Kink has went from about 100 to 140 employees. If Peter were losing money on Kink he would not be hiring for new positions.
Whether the Armory is worth more as a dungeon or as office space I cannot comment knowingly about. I do know that Peter borrowed a significant amount of money to buy the Armory (the total price was about $14 million) and a change of use could cause the financial institution holding to accelerate the loan principal, making it due immediately. Peter is rich but he might not have $10 million in cash available to pay the then accelerated loan off if he attempts to change the permitted use from film production to office space (office space is more risky as he cannot guarantee being able to lease the space out, it is a reasonable assumption that if it remains film production that the payments will be made from operating revenues at least for the next few years).
If Peter does move to Nevada since the Armory is its own corporation so he could theoretically let the bank eat the loan without much penalty to his other businesses or to himself.
Is johnny castle still being pimped to gay men by david forest.