HARRISBURG, PA – Democrats have been called the “tax-and-spend” party. If a Pennsylvania legislator has her way, the Republicans may become known as the “tax-and-sin” party.Following in the footsteps of fellow Republicans in Utah and Texas, State Sen. Jane Orie has proposed her state adopt a sin tax that would impose a 10-percent levy on patrons of strip clubs, escort services, and other adult-oriented businesses.
Orie’s tax proposal is patterned after a 2004 Utah statute that imposes a 10-percent excise fee on gentlemen’s clubs and escort services. It is under review by the state’s supreme court. Texas this year levied a so-called “pole tax” that takes the form of a $5 admission fee at cabarets. It also faces legal challenges. The revenue from both taxes is earmarked for fighting sex-related crimes.
In support of her proposal, Orie cited studies from major metropolitan areas including Los Angeles, New York, and Austin, TX, indicating higher crime rates and “neighborhood blight” occur in areas that include adult-entertainment businesses. She said she wants the money a sin tax would generate to fund mental health, child advocacy, domestic violence, and other services that are needed to “remediate the harm [adult businesses] are doing in communities.”
Peter Georgiades, a lawyer who represented the X-rated Garden Theatre in a seven-year battle with Pittsburgh, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Orie’s claims were unsubstantiated.
“The senator apparently equates adult uses with rape, and I haven’t seen any such evidence,” he said. Marijuana was outlawed in the1930s partially “because of an unfounded assumption that marijuana led to rape,” he added.
Club owners tend to agree with him.
“I guess they want to put us out of business,” said Frank Bergel, who owns Silky’s Gentlemen’s Club.
Some store owners are concerned about the way a new law might be written.
“If she’s going to impose something like that, she’s going to have to go a lot broader than selectively picking out a specific industry,” Vanessa Fuchs, owner of Sassy Sensations stores, told the Pittsburgh Tribune. She said she thought it would be unfair of the state to impose a tax on stores like hers but not on convenience stores that sell adult magazines or department stores that sell “personal massagers.”
“It will be tough to define what an adult business is,’” Fuchs told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “If you go to Sears and get a personal massager, is that an adult business? Is a drug store that sells Trojans? Where does it stop?”
She also said the legislature should do things to encourage business growth in Pennsylvania, not make things more difficult for the businesses already located there.
However, Georgiades told the Post-Gazette he suspects many adult establishments “would be happy to collect and pay over [to the state] such a tax, if it would mean they would be left alone and allowed to conduct their business.”
Observers of the political process say sin taxes and other possibly unconstitutional restrictions on adult enterprises are “no brainers,” especially in an election year.
“It’s a free vote for morality,” Jack Treadway, chairman of the political science department at Kutztown State University, told the Pittsburgh Tribune. “But at some point, you are going to run into First Amendment problems. Then it is going to get tricky.”
Orie’s district already has seen what can happen when morality and business collide. On Thursday, Marshall town fathers broadened their definition of “adult-oriented business” in order to restrict the expansion of Right Ascension Inc., the parent company of DVD Empire, Adult DVD Empire and Gay DVD Empire. Right Ascension became the focus of heated public debate in September when the company approached Marshall officials with a request that it be allowed to more than triple the size of support facilities for its cyberspace-only distribution network, located in an industrial park on the edge of town.
Orie said the study phase of her proposal could take six to eight months to complete before legislators would be able to craft a sin-tax law. In addition, she told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette she was unsure whether the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee, the body that will conduct the study, would recommend the law be enacted at the state or local level.
