Porn moguls threaten to pull out of LA

Adult film makers are warning they may have to pull out of America’s porn capital Los Angeles after the city’s mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, signed an ordinance requiring actors to use condoms in their movies.

Officials with the Aids Healthcare Foundation, which lobbied for years for such a law, welcomed the decision and said they would turn their attention to getting a similar condom requirement adopted elsewhere to protect actors from HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

"The city of Los Angeles has done the right thing. They've done the right thing for the performers," said Michael Weinstein, president of the foundation, which had pushed for the measure for six years.

Around 90 per cent of the porn films produced in the US are made in Los Angeles. Most are filmed in the city's suburban San Fernando Valley.

After the council's action, several of the industry's biggest film-makers said they might consider moving just outside the county. That prompted the mayor of Simi Valley, Bob Huber, to announce last week he would ask the city attorney for his community, located just across the county line from the San Fernando Valley, to write a similar ordinance.

The industry already requires that actors be tested for HIV every 30 days, and film-makers say they believe that is sufficient.

"It's not that I don't doubt the sincerity of their desire to protect the talent. And, believe it or not, we have the same ambition," Christian Mann, general manager of Evil Angel Productions, said. "We just don't believe their way is the best way."