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11/20/2003 Archived Entry: "LINDA'S INDY EDITORIAL"

LINDA'S INDY EDITORIAL

As usual, Linda's editorial, "There are better ways to fight", in this week's INDY is a good one. "Grand jury investigation isn't the answer to concerns over adult video store".

"It's not easy to turn an adult video store into a victim, but the folks in Abilene are close to accomplishing the transition. Let's hope Wilson residents don't follow their lead. Because everyone else is too naive...or immoral...to avoid the temptations of the Lion's Den Adult Superstore in Abilene, a group calling itself Citizens for Strengthening Community Virtues has decided to help us out.

"When members weren't jotting down the license tag numbers of truckers who frequent the store, they were collecting signatures on a petition to force a grand jury investigation into the Lion's Den.

"Friday, judges of the Eighth Judicial District approved the order summoning the grand jury. As a result, 15 jurors, who must be impaneled within 60 days, will be asked to decide whether items sold at the store are obscene or merely pornographic.

"Obviously, this exercise in democracy will cost taxpayers a few dollars---and all because a few want to control the behavior of many...."

"...Forever, residents of rural Kansas have rejected laws and regulations that would have given small towns and counties control over their growth. They seemed to be to fly in the face of the independent, 'I'll-do-whatever-I please-with-my-own-property' attitude that fills the Kansas landscape."

This about sums it up in a nutshell. People have brought zoning suggestions to the city and county for years and the powers that be have always been reluctant to enact laws regulating the use of private property. I remember the struggle that the Ellsworth City Council went through many moons ago while trying to establish some kind of zoning for Ellsworth. If you look around, you can observe there isn't much zoning other than regulating single and multiple family dwellings...and not always then.

In Abilene, as in Wilson, it was a local fight between those who want to tell us what to do and those who don't want to be told what to do until the added element of American Family Association was injected into the play. Now the rules are different and the game will be played in a different way. That is unfortunate.