Senior Thesis Sex for Sale: The Regulation of Denver's Sex Industry, 1960 to 1980 “Although we have assumed that obscenity does exits, and that we ‘know it when [we] see it,’ we are manifestly unable to describe it in advance except by reference to concepts so elusive that they fail to distinguish clearly between protected and unprotected speech...[IIf you can’t define it, you can’t prosecute people for it. Justice Brennan ” After sixteen years of drafting obscenity laws, Justice Brennan finally concluded that obscenity laws were not viable: no definitions provided by authorities could rid the term of its vagueness and subjectivity.” Still, the obscenity laws were used by Denver's legislatures and judges to enforce various ordinances against the sex industry. Existing ever since Denver's Red Light district was established on Market Street, obscenity laws were used as a medium to rid the city of moral panic caused by the surge in prostitution. But it was not until the emergence of the sexual revolution in the 1960s with the unprecedented appearance of pornography, sex clubs, escort services, and prostitution did authorities begin unsuccessfully enacting laws to suppress ‘the sex industry (laws that eventually proved to be unconstitutional because obscenity was ‘soon recognized as a form of free speech). As the demand for sex grew, the vice squad did little to regulate adult entertainment businesses. With the lack of regulation, the criteria for what was considered “obscene” was diluted each year as the businesses continued * Marjorie Heins, Not in Front of the Children: “Indecency,” Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2007) 86. * Heins, 86. > Heins, 87.to push the boundaries of what was socially accepted. By looking at newspaper articles from the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post, it becomes clear that the vice squad was initially consumed with the fear of the sex industry corrupting public morality when the revolution first swept through Denver. Eventually, the industry was accepted by the general Public and the vice squad became more preoccupied with prostitution. An ongoing problem for Denver's authorities, prostitution became even more difficult to regulate after the sex industry became widespread. Interestingly, authorities only pushed for strict regulation, not abolition, Perhaps knowing that abolishing people’s desire for sex was impossible, The tactics used by the Police were generally subtle in that they did not make it difficult for prostitutes to work the streets of Broadway and Colfax. The combination of the public’s high demand for the sex industry and the vice squad's lack of interest to suppress it made regulating the sex industry nearly impossible. For decades historians have delved into the history of how sex changes over time in societies and how those societies attempt to regulate it. When discussing post-WWII sexuality, most historians agree that it was driven by the sexual revolution and had sparked controversy for its inclusively of all sex for all people. Professor at California State University, Josh Sides, argues that the postwar sex district of the 1960s and 1970s was not merely a relic but rather a completely new phenomenon. Sides emphasizes that the sex businesses that emerged during the sexual revolution had never been seen in the early nineteenth century. Businesses such as Strip clubs, swinger discos, bookstores and theaters displaying pornography, and escort services brought an element of explicit and public sex to the street of urban cities, constantly challenging and revising the criteria of what was considered to be “obscene.” Furthermore, thesex district played a crucial role in municipal politics when authorities enforced zoning laws on adult entertainment establishments, forcing owners to relocate their businesses for fear of a large concentration of sex-related businesses in one area. Essentially, by enacting zoning laws, authorities took on an “out of sight, out of mind” ideology by implicitly approving businesses pertaining to vice." T.C. Esselstyne expands on Side’s revelation by concluding that regulating sex is mathematically impossible if society wants to meet the demand of all members in all circumstances without destroying the organization of society itself. Sex, or any product of sex, is prevalent in all societies and the demand for it will not disappear. Hence, prostitution, or any product of a sex-related business, may in fact be a social evil (something that members of societies see as obscene and corrupting to public morality) but it is still inevitable in society because the desire for it is so overwhelming. No matter how improbable it was, conservative sexual reformers and city officials in the pre-WWII era had never ceased to strive for public morality in their quest to regulate the sexual activity of society's members.” This is evident in their movement to regulate vice in Denver upon the appearance of the first red-light district on Market Street. Before the term “\ ice” became synonymous with the sex industry in the 1960's, it was used to describe crimes against morality in the form of drunkenness, gambling, drug use, and prostitution in the pre-WWII era. Denver's population grew rapidly as a result of the Gold Rush “ Josh Sides, “Excavating the Postwar Sex District in San Francisco, “Journal of Urban History,” (2006). SAGE, http://0-juh.sagepub.com.skyline.ucdenver.edu/, 335. °T.C. Esselstyne, “Prostitution in the United States, “Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,” (1985). JSTOR, wanw.jstor.edu, 129.and immigration, and with that, the number of prostitutes also increased.* Prostitutes gravitated towards Market Street (then called Holladay Street) because it housed most of Denver's well-known brothels. Duri peak years, the number of prostitutes in Denver's red- light district increased by seventy-seven percent. As businesses such as grocery stores, drug stores, watchmakers, barber shops, dental offices, restaurants and saloons also flourished on Market Street, it became a convenient residential area for upper and middle class families.’ As the district grew more diverse in the age of its residents, authorities became increasingly concerned with the occurrence of vice on Market Street. The tactics used by the vice squad and religious reformers to regulate Denver's red-light district in the late 1800's and the early 1900's were primarily determined by their desire to preserve the dominance of Protestantism. Immediately following the growth of the district was the formation of purity groups who sought to abolish saloons, alcohol, and above all, prostitution by educating women on sex, child rearing, social hygiene, and moral issues." It was not until 1879 when the Twenty-fourth Street School was built a few blocks away from Market Street that authorities seriously considered moving the red-light district. Local politicians held a meeting to move the tenderloin district to another location. The opinions on the matter were split; some wanted the district shut down while others wanted it to move. Ultimately, it was the school that relocated in 1913, and the tenderloin district remained.” The vice bureau experienced many failures prior to the relocation * Cheryl Seibert Waite, “Denver's Disorderly Women: Prostitution and the Sex Trade, 1858 to 1935, (Masters Thesis, University of Colorado Denver, 2006), 2 * waite, 131. * waite, 31. * waite, 18.of the school, but none to this degree. The issue of prostitution continued to dominate the minds of Christian reformers, yet the matter of eliminating the district was not discussed again Until 1912 in a debate over the regulation of Market Street. Authorities agreed that prostitution was polluting to society and the red-light district was to be dissolved. The closing of the red- light district on February 23, 1913 evicted over three hundred women who were forced to find work outside the district.”° The regulation of prostitution continued loosely in Denver and it was not until the national spread of the sexual revolution in the 1960's and the media attention surrounding it, that authorities treated prostitution, and vice altogether, as an issue treated on the merits of law versus morality. ‘As avvehicle for sexual reform, the sexual revolution created a widespread acceptance for casual sex, changing urban societies and their culture. Historian David Allyn credits this transformation to peoples’ desire to reveal the truth about their sexual histories and desires,” This truth, first emerging in the early 1960s, came in waves. It first arose from the invention of the birth control pill which catered to women’s changing ideologies that sex was no longer only for procreation. During the middle and late 1960s, the idea of sexual truth influenced the emergence of sexual literature in the form of pornography, both in text and in film. By the early 1970s, the desire for sex only grew and mild forms of pornography soon gave way to explicit hard-core movies shown in urban theaters as well as the opening of night clubs dedicated to customers seeking group sex.’ As the acceptance of the new ideologies continued to grow, the “waite, 25. ™ David Allyn, Make Love, Not War: The Sexual Revolution, An Unjettered History (New York: litle, Brown and Company, 2001) x ® David Allyn, 4-5.vice bureau pressed for harsher punishment for those who committed social crimes against public morality. Allyn emphasizes that the sexual revolution had many connotations, but over all, it was the freedom, and the widespread acceptance of that freedom, to have sex wherever and whenever one wished.” Yet before the sexual revolution emerged in full effect, its roots were found on the streets of urban cities, especially in local gentlemen's clubs where women. used the promise of sex to entice men to buy them drinks. Working the club scene from the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, B-Girls (Bar girls) hustled their way into men’s wallets. Working at bars, strip joints, taverns, and night clubs, B- Girls encouraged male patrons to purchase them drinks in exchange for sexual favors. 8-Girls worked on commission by receiving a percentage cut based on the number of drinks they sold.” A commodity for Denver's club owners, B-Girls were able to generate more profit than any other employees. One local stripper turned waitress emphasized, “Any bartender would be crazy to run them off, because you'll always find guys buying drinks where there are lots of broads hanging around.”"* And buy drinks they did. The average B-Girl patron spent from three hundred to four hundred dollars in a single night buying drinks (tabs would get expensive because B-Girls would usually only drink champagne, the most expensive cocktail offered at Denver's hot spots)."° Although some B-Girls fulfilled their promise of a sexual rendezvous, most disappeared once the patron was ready for check out. As complaints coming from ® David Ally, 6 » "city Council Wary of 8-Girl Issue,” Rocky Mountain News, August 8, 1966, 5. 25 “B.Giels Work in Denver Bars, Strip Joints, Rocky Mountain News, June 18, 1962, 5. * B.Girls Work in Denver Bars, Strip Joints, Rocky Mountain News, June 18, 1962, 4.unsatisfied patrons became more frequent, patrons were depicted as the victims female ‘sabotage. It was only then that the B-Girls issue was addressed by Safety Manager Alfred Capra, Detective Lieutenant Stan Cayou of the vice bureau, and County Judge George Manerbino at a council meeting in 1966. During the meeting Capra declared, “Morally, this appears to be a rather serious situation, but | certainly have no suggestions as to a legal method for correcting the problem.””” Because there was no legal control over B-Girls and the push for state regulation was unmentioned, the transition to tending to B-Girls legally was slow. Authorities had little leeway to claim that what the women were doing was not merely unethical, but violated a law. Still, a legal method was granted in 1969 by State Revenue Director John Heckers in the form of liquor licensing regulations for Denver's night clubs. These sets of rules and regulations proposed that those who held a bar license would be barred from selling liquor from allowing any hostess, entertainer, or waitress to solicit, beg, or encourage customers to purchase beverages."® As B-Girls gradually disappeared from Denver's nightlife, the vice squad remained concerned about night clubs and the negative male attention their female employees attracted. Most of the concern was geared towards nude dancing, which had reached far beyond strip Joints to art theaters, movie houses and night clubs in the early 1970s. In an attempt to discourage nude dancing from spreading further in these various adult entertainment establishments, the “topless” ordinance, prohibiting females over the age of twelve to expose their breasts in public unless the nipple and areola were covered by a nontransparent material, “City Council Wary of 8-Girl Issue,” Rocky Mountain News, August 8, 1966, 4. ™ state Plans Restrictions on B-Girls,” Rocky Mountain News, July 1, 1969, 10.and “bottomless” ordinance, which prohibited persons of either sex to expose the cleft of their buttock in public, were strictly enforced. Judge William H. Burnett found Donna L. Owens and Sandra J. Brown guilty of violating both ordinances at the Mini-Art Theater in 1972. Burnett sentenced both women to ninety days in the Denver County Jail and fined them three hundred dollars. According to Burnett, his ruling was based on “facts” which he gathered while attending ‘a twenty-minute performance at the Theater where he witnessed the women dance slowly to music while stripping off their clothing until they were fully nude. In finding the dancers guilty, Judge Burnett reiterated that performances of that nature had “little other objective than to do that which is prohibited, i.e., publicly display nudity.” Stil, the jail sentence and fines were later, suspended on the condition that the dancers not violate the same ordinances for a year."” The severity of the regulations changed when in 1976 District Judge Saul Pinchick ruled that Denver's previous “topless” and “bottomless” ordinances were unconstitutionally vague. Pinchick pushed for a new ordinance which required that only a portion of the breast be covered with an opaque material.”° The ordinances continued to be revised and eventually grew lenient enough in 1977 for P.T.’s topless bar in Denver to not only host topless disco on Saturday nights but also include nude wrestling and amateur nude beauty pageants which attracted between three hundred to four hundred adults a night” P.1.’s was not the only topless bar to stretch the boundaries of the sex industry. By 1978, the vice squad was faced with a new challenge in Denver's club scene with the * Women Convicted of Nude Dancing,” Rocky Mountain News, March 18, 1972, 8. * Topless Nightspots Stay Abreast of Law,” Rocky Mountain News, February, 26, 1976, 8. * “Denver Due for Deluge of Clubs Offering Sexual Freedom, Rocky Mountain News, April 30, 1978, 134.emergence of sex clubs and swinger discos offering customers the freedom to indulge in their sexual desires. Inspired by New York’s successful swinger disco Plato’s Retreat, which offered group orgies in specifically designated rooms, sex clubs in Denver allowed as many as four hundred unrestrained adults to shed their clothes; dance to heavy disco music; and participate in sex games, communal showers, or group baths in sunken redwood tubs. Plato's ll, along with several other sex clubs, did not allow explicit sex acts on their premises until after “local shock dies down,” as stated by the manager.” What he meant by “local shock” is unclear since he also stated that there was overwhelming interest by the public before the club had even announced its opening. What was certain was the vice squad’s disapproval of the new clubs although there was little they could do to suppress their openings. When asked about the behaviors allowed within swinger discos, Captain Jerry Kennedy, head of the vice squad, displayed a general lack of interest when he responded, “Hell, it’s probably all legal.’”> Kennedy and his squad did little to suppress the clubs and with the lack of regulation and increasing interest in swinging, sex clubs became more visible than ever before. The vice squad was perhaps too preoccupied with the widespread appearance of Pornography in the late 1960s and early 1970s when it began occupying Denver's local bookstores, photography studios, movie theaters and newsstands. By 1971, there were approximately thirty bookstores, thirty-five movie houses, sixteen movie theaters, and nine photography studios all dedicated to “adult” or “x-rated” material in Denver. The evolution ® "Denver Due for Deluge of Clubs Offering Sexual Freedom, Rocky Mountain News, April 30, 1978, 8 ® "Denver Due for Deluge of Clubs Offering Sexual Freedom, Rocky Mountain News, April 30, 1978. 810 from selling conventional material to downright explicit porn was rapid. At first, various newsstands throughout the streets of Denver sold mild “girlie” magazines or pin-up pictures and then quickly escalated to selling magazines displaying male and female nudity together. Within a year, nude pictures in magazines gave way to displays of group sex and sado- masochism in literature and film.” The introduction of porn to the Mile High City began with the availability of sexual literature at bookstores in the late 1960s which was perhaps the most profitable product in the porn industry. An article from Cervi’s Journal revealed, "The mark-up is said to be 100 percent all down the line from distributor to store owner to customer. A book costing $1.50 will cost $6 by the time it is purchased.” Independently owned movie houses also generated high profit by charging customers anywhere from three to seven dollars admission, and they generated the most profit when middle-class businessmen would attend a screening. The newest type of pornography that dominated Denver's sex industry was nude photography. Nude photography studios provided a client with a camera, a roll of film and a nude female model (most clients were male} to take pictures of her at twenty dollars per every fifteen minutes. These studios would accommodate about seventy clients a week and give the models a forty percent cut from each client. With the exception of body painting studios, where clients would paint the bodies of the models, most body contact and lewd posing was not permitted because the models would call the shots. As one nude model expresses, “They Usually come right out and say what they want. We tell them no. Sometimes they ask us for their money back, some take a few pictures and leave. Very few come in just to take 2" Sex Industry Profiting from Middle Aged Hang-Ups,” Cervi’s Journal, May 27, 1974, 11 pictures-a lot are disappointed.””° Giving women the freedom to control how nude photography was conducted helped solidify the porn industry as a business for both sexes, The explosion of pornography was almost immediately followed by a widespread movement to suppress it. Colorado State Senator Ted Strickland’s proposition of a bill to ‘toughen obscenity laws in Colorado by making it possible to outlaw explicit sexual acts of any kind in film, live performances, books and magazines was short-lived.”" In addition, five Denver women, known as the Bluebird Five, were arrested in 1977 on charges of destruction of property after they had vandalized the Bluebird Theater, which showed pornographic movies. Although the charges were quickly dropped, the feminist organization failed to gain support from the general public for their declaration of war on pornography.”” Nearly two decades before these campaigns against obscenity emerged, the U.S. Supreme Court attempted to tighten the laws on sexual literature in the 1957 Roth decision, in which the court concluded that sex and obscenity were separate”, and the 1973 Miller v. California ruling, in which the court determined that obscenity should be regulated.”* Although Ted Strickland, the Bluebird Five and other conservatives who campaigned for sexual restriction, would continually strive for tougher obscenity laws, itis clear that the effects of U.S. Supreme Court rulings made it difficult 2" sex Industry Profiting from Middle Aged Hang-Ups,” Cervi's Journal, May 27, 1971, 9. 2% Hard-Line Bill by Strickland Aims at Smut,” The Denver Post, March 16, 1977, 2. 2» "Bluebird Five Victory Claims Disputed,” The Denver Post, January, 23, 1978, 14, ** paul S. Boyer, “Purity in Print: Book Censorship In America From The Gilded Age To The Computer Age (Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press: 2002), 209. ® Marjorie Heins, Not In Front of the Children: “indecency,” Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth {New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2007) 87,2 for Denver authorities to regulate the sex industry because the criteria for what was obscene was unworkable. Although Denver authorities could do very little to regulate the sex industry, they enacted laws nevertheless. Because the sex industry had not become visibly prevalent on the streets of Denver (especially on Colfax and Broadway) until the 1970s, Denver authorities did not pass city zoning laws until 1976 (later revised in 1981). Zoning laws were designed to prevent adult businesses from operating too close to each other, and authorities did not want crated businesses to create a skid row (back-to-back adult entertainment businesses) of vice. The zoning regulations required that adult entertainment establishments be at least five hundred feet away from residential homes, churches, and schools and be no closer than a thousand feet from another adult entertainment establishment. City zoning administrator, Dorothy Nepa, explained that public pressure was strong to crack down on the local industry but she could do very little to actually minimize the spreading of the establishments because they were not actually illegal, Instead, by enforcing zoning laws Denver zoning administrators and politicians essentially managed to allow adult bookstores, peep shows, strip joints, and the like to flourish in moderation.” ‘An article in Rocky Mountain News shed even more light on Denver's lack of regulation of adult entertainment when it explored the boom in Denver's sex industry. The article revealed that sexual libertarians argued against obscenity laws on the grounds that they were unconstitutional and violated citizens’ freedom of speech.** Several obscenity laws had been “Sex: Zoning Laws Gave Businesses a ‘Monopoly,’ Rocky Mountain News, February 28, 1984, 20, * “Legal Markets For Sex Thrills Thrive In City,” Rocky Mountain News, February 26, 1984, 20.B appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court to challenge whether or not they were constitutional. Arthur Schwartz, a prominent lawyer, who had represented several clients charged with violating obscenity laws stated, “Because those laws have always been overreaching, we've been successful in having them overturned because they're unconstitutional.” The article confirmed that the adult entertainment businesses took in between $5.5 million and $6 million annually in the early 1980s despite obscenity laws and zoning restrictions.”* The state's use of the public-nuisance law hardly affected the industry as a whole. It allowed authorities to close around twenty bookstores and theaters between 1980 and 1983 by pressuring business owners ‘to move out or having their landlords evict them.** It did, however, increase the opportunity for prostitution. Within the two-year time period between 1981 and 1983, vice officers made one hundred and twenty-one prostitution arrests at the Galaxy Theater on Colfax, one hundred and thirty-nine arrests at the Empress Theater on Broadway, and fifty-seven at or near the After Dark Theater on Broadway. It became clear that respected men sought the our prostitutes when police records revealed that among those arrested for public indecency laws included an electrical engineer, several priests, an airline pilot, several college professors, and a school counselor. Former Denver vice detective Don Lindley boasted, “I have personally arrested five hundred people. If we just closed those places (Galaxy, After Dark, and the Empress), the public ® “Court Winds Up Nudity Cases,” The Denver Post, March 17, 1972, 21. “Legal Markets For Sex Thrills Thrive In City,” Rocky Mountain News, February 26, 1984, 20. 3438 wSex: Zoning Laws Gave Businesses a ‘Monopoly,’ Rocky Mountain News, February 28, 1984, 10,4 indecency arrests would drop by half.” The public nuisance law only temporarily dampened the occurrence of the sex industry and it failed to create a lasting change in Denver. Each January in Denver, prostitution arrests soared due to the arrival of the annual National Western Stock Show Rodeo. Over the course of the ‘ten-day period, thousands of cowboys flocked to the Mile High City to experience the critically acclaimed rodeo as well as some adult entertainment. National Western promoters claimed the show attracted some fifty thousand out-of-state attendees, and around seventy-five thousand Coloradoans and business iPS cashed in on the country boys’ desire for female ‘owners, prostitutes, and companionship. Proclamations and flyers intrigued cowboys with eye-catching phrases, such as “Girls, Girls, Girls- We provide film and camera,” for photography studios and “Topless- Bottomless,” for strip joints, allowing models and strippers to make an additional sixty dollars a hight in tips.”* Yet it was not the enticing advertisements that drew in the most cowboys, but. rather the persistent prostitutes who traveled from Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, Las Vegas, and smaller western cities. Since the early 1970s, the rodeo never failed to create a surge of Prostitution every year, and the vice squad was prepared for it. Still, police were confident that the number of prostitutes would continually decrease after 1972. “Let's face it,” indicated Sergeant Tom Foos of the vice squad, “morals have changed. The prostitutes are just not as in demand.” Foos’ claim would ultimately be proven false in 1977 when the Rocky Mountain News reported that prostitution during the stock show had increased. Along with the estimated one ‘Vice Squad Cracking Down On Rampant Prostitution,” The Denver Post, February 21, 1983, 3 * “Prostitutes Attract Stock Show Trade,” Rocky Mountain News, January 13, 1977, 645 hundred and fifty prostitutes who already lived in Denver were an additional forty who came from around the surrounding states.”” Among those prostitutes was Monique, a Salt Lake City resident, who came to Denver specifically to work the rodeo circuit because it promised great financial payoff. Arriving in Denver a week prior to the actual event, Monique made more that twenty-five hundred dollars for thirty-five “appointments.” Still hoping to increase her wages, Monique stated, “This week’s [the week of the stock show] going to be a lot better. Cowboys save up all their money all year long just to come to the stock show for one week of fun.” Over the course of their ten-day stay, prostitutes’ wage increased significantly.”® According to Detective Marc Chavez of the vice squad, prostitutes who worked the stock show were money hungry. Chavez accusing prostitutes cleaning out male customers, “Once they see money, that’s all they can think about. If they can turn two tricks and get two hundred dollars, that’s better than five tricks for twenty dollars a piece.” Interestingly, Chavez victimized the male clients with his concern of how the prostitutes ripped off the men, rather than the men willing buying sex. Nevertheless, police would go undercover as cowboys and crack down on prostitutes to collectively make the most arrest during the stock show than any other time of the year.*? Although not as prevalent as during the stock show, prostitution occurred frequently on and around busy streets like Colfax and Broadway. Prostitutes emerged more visibly during the summers when business owners quickly noticed that they were driving away customers in the * “Prostitutes Follow circuit; in Town for the Stock Show” Rocky Mountain News, January 23, 1972, 13 °* “Prostitutes Attract Stock Show Trade,” Rocky Mountain News, January 13, 1977, 20 * “Costumed Police Protect Cowboys,” The Rock Mountain News, January 23,1981, 5016 late 1970s. Business owners on Colfax had long complained about the presence of prostitutes and adult book stores but before the sexual revolution swept through Denver, authorities did little to run them out, Since Colfax and Broadway were miles long, the prevalence of prostitutes was scattered and was thus generally went unnoticed. Yet by 1977, police reports indicated that business owners on Broadway had spotted as many and twenty-five prostitutes at one time. The amount of complaints coming from business owners was at least a half a dozen if not more. Among those issuing complaints was Patty Hunt, a bartender for Blackbeard’s Lounge, which lost twenty percent of its business. Hunt stated, “They [the prostitutes] proposition everyone who comes in through the door. A lot of people don’t want to come into an establishment that caters to that kind of people. They see them outside and they think we do.”*° again, the police could do very little to solve the problem because the only ammunition they possessed was a loitering ordinance which had previously been declared unconstitutional when used as a medium for arresting prostitutes. Police officers did not have the jurisdiction to arrest women for simply shouting out insinuating remarks at passing drivers. For a conviction to ‘occur, police had to physically see that a man or woman had offered or agreed to perform a sexual act for money. If a woman were to even get ‘caught by the police for prostitution, she would only be charged with a misdemeanor offense. Because proving an agreement between a pro: ite and her client was so difficult, prostitution was nearly impossible to eliminate. “They're always going to come back”, said Detective Paul Owens of the vice squad, “as long as they know that we don’t have an ordinance to enforce against them.” In an attempt to compensate for their lack of regulation, the officers issued citations for minor offenses such as “ “Hookers ‘Driving Away Business, "” The Denver Post, May 22, 1977, 2v7 jaywalking against women and traffic against men who pulled over to speak to a prostitute.‘ Regulating prostitution became even more difficult when prostitutes began taking out newspaper ads and classifieds in the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News. Typically, a full page would be dedicated to ads promising “A love of your own,” “Something different,” “Blondes unlimited” or “Lovely ladies as near as your phone for a delightful evening or hour of enchantment.””? Disguising prostitution as an escort service, phone calls were used to set up appointments making it almost impossible to trace a connection between prostitutes and their clients. It was also safer. The growing rates in crime made the streets a dangerous place for Prostitutes to work. Women could find themselves in compromising situations that often led to theft, violence, rape, and even death. Finding a certain level of protection in an outcall service, Prostitutes would always have someone who would be informed on their whereabouts and with whom their appointments were. A woman would merely take a call from a client, and discuss an arrangement, come to the client’s address, collect her sum (costing around thirty- five dollars per every half an hour), and carry on with whatever was agreed upon. Out of those thirty-five dollars, the escort would keep no more than ten dollars herself and the rest would go to the business. Escorts would, however, receive tips for “extra” activities they were willing to perform or engage in.’ When asked about their questionable decision to display escort service advertisements, the director of advertising for the Rocky Mountain News, Carlos Boettger, “' "Hookers ‘Driving Away Business, The Denver Post, May 22, 1977, 2 “Kennedy Claims Post, News Ads Aid Prostitution” Rocky Mountain News, January 1, 1978, * “advertising ‘Outcall Encounters’ of the Sexual Kind,” Rocky Mountain News, October 29, 1978, 8418 responded, “{The newspaper has a] moral as well as legal obligation to accept advertising for any service not forbidden by the law. Accepting of all advertising is objective and shouldn't be interpreted as an endorsement of a product, service or cause.” Director of advertising for the Denver Post, Harold Boian, responded similarly, “If it were an illegal business and we were aware of it, we wouldn’t run the ad.”“* Because printing ads for escort services was legal, it created a window of opportunity for interested readers to call the service, something that the vice squad had no control over. Coming to the rescue of the vice squad, who was growing increasingly clueless in how to legally tackle escort services, was State Representative, Laura DeHerrera. Working in district 9, DeHerrera became interested in escort services in 1979 when a bar and hotel in her district were outed as fronts for prostitution. Feeling strongly about the need for abolishing escort services, DeHerrera expressed her concerns: “We have a law that prohibits prostitution, yet we allow it to be advertised. | can’t do anything about what can be done on paper, but I can sure try to do something else.” In 1980, DeHerrera introduced a bill in the Legislature that would require all escort services and those who worked within them to be licensed annually by either municipal or county authorities. In addition, the bill would require that all escorts be at least eighteen years old and legal Colorado residents. Those who did not meet the mandatory conditions of the bill would be charged with a misdemeanor punishable by a one-year prison sentence accompanied by a five thousand dollar fine. That year, vice officers estimated that there were between two hundred and fifty and three hundred escort services operating in Denver. The squad predicted that the bill would eliminate at least half of the escort services “ Kennedy Claims Post, News Ads Aid Prostitution” Rocky Mountain News, January 1, 1978, 519 because most of them were operated by pimps who would not put effort into licensing their establishment. Although the bill was welcomed by most, some critics were concerned that the new law would drive many escort services “underground,” an issue that seemed to rest easily with the vice squad. Detective Coordinator for the Denver Police Department's vice detail said that forcing the escort services “underground” was better than letting them flourish in the open. The fear of escort services migrating from the streets operating underground soon become a reality once the police had jurisdiction to evict escort services from the streets when DeHerrera’s bill passed in later that year.” ‘As soon as the bill passed, the vice squad wasted no time in cracking down on the escort services. Within a few months, the vice squad shut down three of Denver's largest escort services. C&M Enterprises, Rosemary's Secretarial Service (also known as Rosie’s) and K&K Enterprises were closed, along with ten smaller services. Instead of arresting one prostitute at a time, the squad went after the owners of the escort services to reach their goal of investigating, charging and prosecuting as many illegal services as possible. Seeking charges against individual prostitutes often hindered the work done by police because once a prostitute was taken into custody, her fellow prostitutes would quickly spread the word. Seeking the arrest of escort service operators, however, insured that the entire business would close at once. The first indictments were handed to James Hendryx Criswell, Patty Mueller, and Paula Thortvedt, all of whom were associated with C&M Enterprises. The firm, which employed over thirty-five women, advertised daily in both of Denver's newspapers under fifteen to twenty different names, including “Sexy and French Ladies,” “Leather Castle,” “Ooh-La-La,” “Let’s Make a Deal,” * "Measure to License Escort Services Proposed,” Rocky Mountain News, February 4, 1980.20 “Blonde Velvet,” “California Girls,” “Swedish Blondes,” “Black Beauties,” “Spanish Delight,” and “Pony Express.” With the help of the newspaper ads, C&M was able to generate an annual gross income of nearly half a million dollars, Rosemary’s Secretarial Service, which employed about forty-five women, was the next escort service to be out of business when police indicted ‘owners Bill and Rosemary Cooper Lawley as well as employee Sheila Fowler. Similar to C&M, Rosie’s took out daily ads under the names “Phone Phantasy,” “Fantastic & Nice,” “Treasure Chest,” Dreamakers,” “A Ladies Touch,” “Honey, Dial-a-Chick,” “Luscious & Nice,” “Total Pleasure,” and “Escorts Wanted.” Another large escort service employing about twenty five women, K&K Enterprises, closed down voluntarily. “They knew the pressure was coming and they wanted to avoid it, so they closed down,” said Chief Deputy District Attorney, David J Thomas, who worked closely with the squad. The ten smaller escort services that were shut down were Wide and Open, golden Zipper, United Encounter Service, Candy's Apartment, Dial-a-Blonde, the Express, Ebony Brown Sugar and Party Ladies Unlimited."° The closing of each service contributed to the sudden eruption of underground escort services. The police’s response to the underground escort services was to take out their own personal ads warning potential escort service clients that they too were subject to prosecution if they were to engage in prostitution.” The prevalence of the underground services made arrests more difficult. By late 1980, most escort services were no longer visible and the police grew restless from not tracking violators. For the thrill to make an arrest, policeman Raul © «Probe Forces Closure of 13 Escort Services,” Rocky Mountain News, September 1, 1980, 4. “vice Officer's Methods Attacked,” Rocky Mountain News, April 13, 1980, 6.21 Batista agreed to engage in various sexual behaviors with prostitutes while undercover. His tactic involved renting an adjoined hotel room where he would wait undercover for his “appointment” while his partner stayed in the next room, waiting to barge in for an arrest. When his escort arrived, Batista claimed to be an out-of-town marketing executive. Doubting his legitimacy, the woman insisted he prove that he was not a cop by giving her oral sex. After Batista complied “momentarily” (according to his report), the woman offered him sex for one hundred-and-fifty dollars, leading Batista to signal his partner for the arrest.“® The arrested prostitute went on to claim that his “momentary” compliance lasted over three minutes and was then followed by sexual intercourse, a claim that Batista repeatedly denied. As the case ‘was approaching its jury trial in the Denver County Court, the details of the arrest became publicized and the methods of the vice squad came under public attack. Deciding it would be too difficult to explain to the jury why Batista went to unnecessary lengths to effect an arrest, the city attorney asked the judge to dismiss the case, without so much as a slap on the wrist. The dismissal of the case did not sit well with the escort’s attorney, Peter Ney, who said that in three similar cases where prostitutes accused officers of engaging in sexual intercourse, the officers failed to appear in court. Ney insisted that prostitutes feared that pressing charges would lead to further harassment by the vice squad. Responding to Ney’s criticism, Captain Jerry Kennedy came to the defense of his men: “In the six years I've been in vice, there isn’t a man in this department how hasn't been accused of the same thing. | know there are whores “ "ice Officer’s Methods Attacked,” Rocky Mountain News, April 13, 1980, 6, © "Vice Officer's Methods Attacked,” Rocky Mountain News, April 13, 1980, 53,22 out there who say the same thing about me, After you arrest the same girl two or three times, she wants revenge, and that’s one way to get it.”° A month following the scandal in 1980, Mayor William H. McNichols, Police Chief Art Dill, City Safety Manager Elvin Caldwell, along with several city attorneys came together to compile a new conduct code for vice officers. Chick Seliner, legal adviser to the Police Department, commented, “In the past, we thought discretion and common sense would prevail. But there is some indication that hasn't happened.” Details of the conduct code remained confidential to keep prostitutes unaware of undercover officers. If women were to find out the details of the conduct code, they would immediately insist that the potential clients go “one step further” to prove that they were not cops. Opinions of whether or not officers should remove their clothing were split. Repeating that getting naked in the name of arresting a prostitutes did not go against the law; Sellner did assume that it violated community standards. In the end, it was the individual officers’ judgment of the severity of each case that would have to allow him to strip down.”* With the indifference on the matter, it became clear that authorities had little concern with how the vice squad conducted themselves while on duty. The police continued regulating the sex industry, especially the escort services, for several decades. With the exception of prostitution, most of the adult entertainment. establishments eventually became legal in Denver after the revolution had faded away. The sex industry from 1960 to 1980 redefined what was considered to be obscene among the public, continually overturning laws proposed by authorities to minimize obscenity and making vice Officer's Methods Attacked,” Rocky Mountain News, April 13, 1980, 53, 5 “Vice Officers Get Conduct Code,” Racky Mountain News, May 5, 1980, 523 regulation difficult, The strict regulation of the industry failed because the demand for sex was constantly increasing and the regulation methods used by the vice squad continually failed. Although prostitution in Denver remained illegal, it was still prevalent and virtually uncontrollable. The vice squad’s attention, however, would soon shift away from prostitution in the 1980s, for the outbreak of the AIDS virus was on the horizon.