SIMI VALLEY : City Posts Warning on News Rack Dispensing Sexually Explicit Publication

Simi Valley officials said they have posted a warning notice on a news rack that dispenses a sexually explicit publication because the operator of the rack has failed to pay a $15 city business tax.

Jocelyn Reed, who oversees the city’s code enforcement officers, said Wednesday that the operator is unknown because a city letter sent to a name on the machine was returned with no forwarding address. Reed said city officials will consider further action concerning the machine if no one responds to the warning note attached to it on Tuesday.

Several residents have complained about the contents of the rack, located outside a shopping center on Los Angeles Avenue, Reed said. Among them was Steve Frank, a candidate for mayor, who scolded the Simi Valley City Council Monday night for not acting to remove the rack.

The machine sells Hollywood New Reality for 75 cents a copy.

On Wednesday Frank charged that City Atty. John Torrance stated in a 1989 memo that the city could use its “blinder rack ordinance” to crack down on this magazine, although Torrance said this week that the publication was exempt.

The blinder ordinance requires that material harmful to minors be kept behind an opaque shield.

Torrance said Wednesday that his 1989 memo did not apply to the edition being sold now in Simi Valley.

He also said courts have ruled that a blinder ordinance applies only to the portion of the magazine that can be seen through the news rack.

Torrance said that portion was not harmful to minors, as defined by state law.