Alcoholic Beverage Control agency attempts to block erotic art exhibit at convention center

condoms. She tells me that they are edible cookies, but each one has a condom inside. “They’ re only a dollar each,” she says, adding, as | edge away from her booth, “it’ sa great joke.” kok # The Art Gallery at the convention Center, featuring the Lifestyles Convention’ s 7th annual Sensual & Erotic Art Exhibition, almost didn’ t happen. The state’ s Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control had tried to prevent it from opening. When their authority was challenged, an ABC representative became an alchemist, transforming logic into absurdity. Legally, he said, you can’ t even have sex in a hotel room which has a mini- bar. Sure, pal, just try to enforce that one. Two days before the convention, the ACLU obtained a restraining order against ABC’ s interference with the art exhibit. But ABC didn’ t just give up and assume the fetal position in a Love Swing. Rather, the agency threatened to revoke the Wyndham Hotel’ s liquor license if they allowed a special two-hour session, the convention’ s traditional Evening of Caressive Intimacy, to take place in the Wyndham Ballroom on Friday as scheduled. This popular, closed-door, clothing-optional massage clinic, limited to the first 200 couples who sign up, would include the “human HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_015201