When the rain comes ...

The Guild Cinema on Friday hosts the return of "Pornotopia," the upscale festival of dirty movies that has been banned in Albuquerque the past four years. I have a history with the event. Back in 2007, I was still a reporter at the Albuquerque Tribune, and I covered the controversial first night, when city zoning inspectors were threatening to stop it from happening.

Here's the lede of the story I co-wrote for the next morning's paper:

Moviegoers waiting in the drizzle to see "Annie Sprinkle's Amazing World of Orgasms" at the Guild Cinema in Nob Hill were in for quite a shock: It looked like the city was shutting down this weekend's adults-only "Pornotopia" film festival.

That show went on, but the next year, at the second annual festival, the city fined the Guild for showing an X-rated movie outside of an approved municipal zone. The Guild appealed to the District Court and then the Court of Appeals. Both upheld the fine. As a law clerk, I helped draft the opinion at the Court of Appeals. You can read it here.

This past summer, the New Mexico Supreme Court overturned that opinion, and in a 4-1 decision ruled that the city's ordinance banning the exhibition of pornographic films was not intended to reach occasional instances such as the Guild's, where a festival occurs only once a year. That opinion can be found here.

While one could take issue with the reasoning of the high court, it can't be denied that the decision is a victory not only for the Guild but for the First Amendment.  And for the women who sponsor the festival and run Self Serve, the upscale sex shop in east Nob Hill.

Let it rain orgasms all night Friday.