Posted on 01/31/2007 1:09:10 PM PST by SmithL
It takes a lot to make San Franciscans blush, but even a city famous for sexual permissiveness apparently has limits.
A studio that makes pornographic S&M-themed movies for the Internet recently took over a historic landmark that once housed the National Guard, unleashing a rare public debate about when — and where — propriety trumps tolerance.
Kink.com, which distributes its videos on X-rated Web sites with names such as Hogtied and Men in Pain, bought the old State Armory in the Mission District for $14.5 million, saying the vacant building's dark Moorish architecture would make a perfect backdrop for fetish films.
"The basements in particular have a creepy, dungeony feel that is quite appropriate," said Kink.com founder Peter Acworth. "We have spent a considerable amount of money on sets to get that dungeony feel."
Acworth, 36, who planned Wednesday to oversee the first leather-clad shoot where guard troops trained for six decades, spent over a year negotiating with the previous owner, keeping the deal private to avoid a backlash until the deal was done earlier this year.
Although city planners said the studio meets zoning requirements, residents and city leaders have reservations about allowing people to be tied up, spanked and poked with mechanical implements in a working class neighborhood.
"While not wanting to be prudish, the fact that kink.com will be located in the proximity to a number of schools give us pause," Mayor Gavin Newsom said in a statement this week. He planned to organize a public hearing on Kink's plans even thought city leaders acknowledge there's little they can do to stop pornography production at the Armory.
Adding to the outrage is the fact that the building — erected in 1912, empty since 1970 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I guess they should have thought of all this BEFORE they sold it to them. Once again the hippies get a lesson in 'actions and consequences'. A pity this lesson won't stick either.
Must be straight porn.
I work two blocks from this building and walk by it every day.
Over the last 10 years, there were at least 10 attempts to purchase this building for housing or retail. Every single one of the offers was shot down by "activists" and "community groups" whining to the city's Planning Dept because the housing wasn't for "the poor" or "the homeless", or the businesses-to-be were not going to cater exclusively to "the poor".
So it sat empty for 10 years.
As far as I'm concerned, it can sit for another 100.
So..what the rest of this story? Where were the activists when this company bought the building?
That almost sounds like real money.
It's just another business... As long as they do that inside, with no visible 'scene' by the bypassers, I don't see why not. Providing, of course, the usual restrictions applied to this kind of business are observed.
how many synonyms can you think of? Hmmm,...
the obvious joke here being that the working class already have enough of that from the city leaders
"erected in 1912"
And 2007. Coming soon to your DVD!
"... people to be tied up, spanked and poked with mechanical implements ....".
I thought the obvious joke was that this is in the MISSION district.
So the low-income housing advocates would not let anybody build any rentable space unless it was low-income housing space. But nobody can make money on low-income housing, so nobody will build it. So no housing or offices get built. Does that one get chalked up as a win?
"The mayor's office is weighing in because they are perhaps buckling to pressure, but that place has stood empty for over 30 years and all the different entities in the Mission District tried to get something going there and ended up fighting each other," (President of Mission Merchants Association) Feilmoser said.
Nature abhors a vacuum. Somebody is going to move in. If your regulatory and political structure makes it impossible for any legitimate operation to move in, an illegitimate one will move in instead. Frankly, it was either going to be a porn studio or the Worlds Biggest Crack House. I think San Francisco is getting off easy on this one.
If what they do is legal, what they do behind the walls of this building is nobody's damn business.
I would be afraid to live in San Francisco. The biggest bolt of lightning in the history of the world might strike that place at anytime.
I went to their website (NOT workplace friendly) and they are straight. I guess they are kinky - a straight porn house in San Fransisco instead of the San Fernando Valley.
Whoa! Clever idea! Were you ever a dem strategist? ;)
At the very least, San Francisco does have Michael Savage and the MythBusters crew, and every city also has their decent restaurants in them.
city leaders have reservations about allowing people to be tied up, spanked and poked with mechanical implements in a working class neighborhood.Working class people don't do things like that? How do the city leaders know? Anyway, as long as the business is acting within the law, then it's no business of the city to interfere.
I heard Bill Clinton was to be the Keynote speaker at the party after the first day of filming.
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