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<br /> :IJ b/5b I <br /> . <br /> . On June 21, 1988, Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III announced the formation. <br /> of a Working Group on the Regulation of Sexually Oriented Businesses to assist public . <br /> . officials and private citizens in finding legal ways to reduce the impacts of sexually <br /> oriented businesses. Members of the Working Group were selected for their special I <br /> , expertise in the areas of zoning and law enforcement and included bipartisan <br /> representatives of the state Legislature as well as members of both the Minneapolis I <br /> . and St. Paul city councils who have played critical roles in developing city ordinances <br /> regulating sexually oriented businesses. . <br /> 11 <br /> The Working Group heard testimony and conducted briefings on the impacts of <br /> . sexually oriented businesses on crime and communities and the methods available to I <br /> reduce or eliminate these impacts. Extensive research was conducted to review <br /> regulation and prosecution strategies used in other states and to analyze the legal I <br /> . ramifications of these strategies. <br /> . As testimony was presented, the Working Group reached a consensus that a I <br /> comprehensive approach is required to reduce or eliminate the impacts of sexually -. <br /> I oriented businesses. Zoning and. licensing regulations are needed to protect residents <br /> from the intrusion of "combat zone" sexual crime and harassment into their <br /> neighborhoods. Prosecution of obscenity has played an important role in each of the I <br /> I cities which have significantly reduced or eliminated pornography. The additional <br /> threat posed by the involvement of organized crime, if proven to exist, may justify the I <br /> j resources needed for prosecution of obscenity or require use of a forfeiture or <br /> racketeering statute. I <br /> . <br /> The Working Group determined that it could neither advocate prohibition of all <br /> I sexually explicit material nor the use of regulation as a pretext to eliminate all sexually I <br /> oriented businesses. This conclusion is no endorsement of pornography or the <br /> businesses which profit from it. The Working Group believes much pornography . I <br /> f conveys a message which is degrading to women and an affront to human dignity. <br /> Commercial pornography promotes the misuse of vulnerable people and can be used I <br /> I by either a perpetrator or a victim to rationalize sexual violence. Sexually oriented <br /> businesses have a deteriorating effect upon neighborhoods and draw involvement of <br /> I <br /> 1 organized crime. <br /> -I <br /> I <br /> -2- <br /> I <br />