Mandatory Condom Giveaway Rejected

Struggling with what they admit is an AIDS “public health emergency,” West Hollywood leaders Monday night approved a plan to give away 300,000 condoms a year to encourage safe sex.

But City Council members stopped short of ordering all bars, nightclubs, coffeehouses and adult businesses in their 2-square-mile city to distribute them free to customers.

The council voted 5-0 to monitor the voluntary compliance of businesses. Council members said at the meeting, which attracted about 75 people, that they will review the giveaway a year from now.

That pledge was not enough to dissuade an AIDS activist from pushing ahead with a ballot initiative aimed at making the distribution mandatory.

“We’ll let the people decide,” said Michael Weinstein, head of AIDS Healthcare Foundation, a nonprofit organization that helps AIDS victims. He said he will turn in petitions Wednesday to force a November vote on a mandatory giveaway.

The distribution plan came after a coalition of West Hollywood nightclub owners pledged to voluntarily keep fish bowls on their bars filled with condoms.

“To make it a mandatory program in my view is a disaster,” said John St. Jarre, operator of the Revolver, a Santa Monica Boulevard “video cabaret.”

Added Arich Berghammer, manager of The House of Blues on the Sunset Strip: “If they mandate it, I suspect they will have a fight on their hands.”

Several West Hollywood council members predicted that bar owners will work hard to make certain the compromise plan succeeds. It targets men considered at risk of contracting the AIDS virus.

“We believe we’ll have the type of cooperation we’ll need,” said Mayor Pro Tem Jeffrey Prang.

The vote capped 11 months of wrangling over whether West Hollywood businesses should be required to offer city-provided condoms to customers.

The issue surfaced last February when Weinstein launched a petition drive asking that voters be allowed to decide whether the condom giveaways should be mandatory at 75 or so businesses in the city that sell alcoholic beverages.

Wide distribution of condoms is a necessity, in Weinstein’s view.

“This is the red light district, although people deny it. Ask the general population of L.A. where the party scene is and they’ll tell you it’s West Hollywood,” he said. “This is party central. We’re here at ground zero. West Hollywood is where people meet to eat, drink and have sex.”

But the mandatory distribution idea angered some business owners. Weinstein and his Hollywood-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation shelved their referendum plan when city officials promised to consider a permanent ordinance that would make condom distribution mandatory.

But Weinstein was discouraged by the slow pace of the drafting of the ordinance. In November, he resurrected the petition drive.

City statistics indicate that while West Hollywood has just one-half of 1% of Los Angeles County’s population, its residents account for 7% of county AIDS cases.

Officials said growing numbers of young men are having unprotected sex, either because of a false feeling of invulnerability to the AIDS virus or because of the impression that drugs now control the disease and that its threat has declined.

City leaders say that by mid-summer last year they were more than tripling (to 250,000) the number of condoms they give out annually. The number of businesses offering them jumped from 10 to more than 30.

Councilman Paul Koretz said the donation of 20,000 more condoms by manufacturers will speed up voluntary distribution.

“People are still dying. We’re going to be saving lives in West Hollywood,” Koretz said.

Weinstein’s call for all bars and nightspots in the city--not just those that cater strictly to gays--to be ordered to offer condoms to customers irritated many business owners.

Michael Niemeyer, owner of a gay nightclub, took out advertising condemning the proposal. He said he considered the mandatory distribution idea a civil liberties issue.

“Do you really need to see condoms in a restaurant? Do you as an adult have to have that kind of intrusion when you go out? Having condoms every four feet around you is insulting,” said Niemeyer, whose Santa Monica Boulevard nightspot called Micky’s is one of the city’s voluntary condom distribution points.

A parade of West Hollywood residents supported the voluntary distribution plan Monday. But one resident seemed unconvinced.

“The whole thing is ridiculous,” Ruth Williams told councilmen. “Who is going to make sure they put them on?”