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What would be interesting is to know how the zoning officer even found out about the parties?

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ORIGINAL: TheHungryTiger

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What would be interesting is to know how the zoning officer even found out about the parties?

I can name a dozen different examples of people running a sex-business in a residential zone who have run afoul of the law. In the majority of cases it is discovered when the 50 cars parked out front wind up blocking the neighbors driveway and the neighbors call in a complaint.

And if its at all like the other examples I know of, the guy will try every trick in the book except just getting the damn permit. Like they did at Whipstock when the event started bringing in +100 people and the event orgnizers claimed they were not running a bdsm event but rather hosting a charity fundraiser picknic. Or the swing club that was local to where I live claiming they wernt a swing club but rather a 'nature worship' church that had sexuality as one of their sacrements. Or when Dressing for Pleasure got busted for having more people in the building than what their occupancy permit allowed, they tried to claim they were not a bdsm dungeon but were an improvesational theater troupe. Or my personal favorite, the MissAnn case in indiana where when the neighbors complained of strange cars showing up and leaving at odd hours and phoned in a tip that they thought their neighbor was running a drug house, the cops show up to discover a profesional dominatrix at work and she claims she isnt actualy a profesional dominatrix but is running a museum showcasing colinioal era torture devices.

I seriously doubt this is the local 'sex hating prude' politicians harassing a place for no reason. If this actualy was a targeted atack by a bunch of bible thumping victorian minded neocons, I would suspect that the dozen or so other bdsm clubs in the area would have been targeted as well. The fact that none of the other clubs are experencing any ~crackdown~ gives me the feeling that this actualy IS a zoning violation and not a 'we hate sex' political crackdown.

Good point by the way about 'college parties' taking donations to cover a keg. Those things get noise complains from the neighbors all the time. And if they do it on a regularly occurring basis, they DO get cited for zoning violations. However, when that happens you never have the party organizers crying that the minority group they belong to is being oppressed and harassed by an iron fistted police state. So those zoning violations never make the news.

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you still need to be considerate of your neighbors.

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It does seem as though every time anything comes up where there are citations or arrests, everyone wnat to jump on the whole "puritanical society" bandwagon and start screaming prejudice, closed mindedness and the like. It's very easy to always have that kind of paranoid attitude rather than think that maybe the guy simply violated a zoning law or annoyed his neighbors with noise and parking bringing attention to himself. Which by the way, whether it was a BDSM event or just a summer BBQ, you still need to be considerate of your neighbors.

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ORIGINAL: TheHungryTiger

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It does seem as though every time anything comes up where there are citations or arrests, everyone wnat to jump on the whole "puritanical society" bandwagon and start screaming prejudice, closed mindedness and the like. It's very easy to always have that kind of paranoid attitude rather than think that maybe the guy simply violated a zoning law or annoyed his neighbors with noise and parking bringing attention to himself. Which by the way, whether it was a BDSM event or just a summer BBQ, you still need to be considerate of your neighbors.

Friend of mine was telling a story. Neighbor of theirs was watching the kids of friends/relatives after school and was being handed a few bucks for their trouble. Another one of their friends asked if they could watch their kids too. Then another. Then another. Soon the city told them they needed to apply for a business permit because they were running a daycare service.

This does NOT mean that the evil oppressive hate mongering politicians all just hate daycare workers and are pushing a bunch of trumped up charges cause they want all daycare centers everywhere closed.

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ORIGINAL: ResidentSadist

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGG,, 1st it's fucking wikipedia now the Washington Post says it tooo:

"BDSM" is short for "bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism."

.... my ass! It's not BDDSSM... It's fucking BDSM no D/s in it... never was!

Fuckers!

(sorry about the side track)

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ORIGINAL: LafayetteLady

I read something like that in the news. A woman, who was lucky enough to be a stay at home mom, was taking most of the neighborhood kids in the morning before the bus came. The municipality told her she was providing daycare. I don't think she was even being paid. Probably not the same people, but still.

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ORIGINAL: QuirkyAnne

Ugh...  What a lot of asshats.  The play parties in my area abide by similar rules.  You show up in mundanes and if you want to don fetish wear, there is a changing room.  There is a mandatory donation (though nowhere near what he was charging since the Dom that opens his home doesn't have a fully equipped dungeon) of $7 to cover the cost of food, and the electrical bills (dungeon is his garage and in winter months space heaters to warm it for nude subs eat up the power). 

If Pickthorne wants to continue to run his home the way he likes, it seems that is the best way to go about it.  Call it donations in order to cover the cost of providing the venue and whatever is left over, donate it.  It seems to me that it's simply the neighbors pissed off that somebody, somewhere, is having fun that they don't approve of since the hourse rules are obviously structured so that the parties are as low key as possible.

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What would be interesting is to know how the zoning officer even found out about the parties?