Lambda Passages carries gay and lesbian literature and a range of titles devoted to self-help, coming out, and religion and homosexuality. Customers can also rent foreign art films. In a specially marked and restricted room, adult videos, magazines, and sex toys are available. Drew maintains that Lambda was informally exempted from the 1990 city ordinance banning adult material along that stretch of Biscayne Boulevard. City officials disagree.
Fred Fernandez, the Upper Eastside Neighborhood Enhancement Team administrator, testified at last week's hearing that when he first inspected the store in February, it contained all adult material. But on subsequent visits, Fernandez said, the mixed merchandise began to include nonadult material.
That's his typical lying fashion, Drew scoffs. We have witnesses who will testify that we have always been the same kind of store.
Code-enforcement board chairman Charles McEwan wondered aloud why no action had been taken months ago when Fernandez first noticed the banned material. This is an arrestable offense, declared McEwan, a retired police officer. After viewing recent photographs of the sex toys, adult videos, and magazines offered in Lambda's restricted area, McEwan allowed that it all looked like adult material to him. And believe me, I'm not holier than thou, he advised the board.
Another board member added that by carrying X-rated merchandise, Lambda was having a negative impact on Miami's Upper Eastside, an affluent neighborhood that includes a heavy concentration of gay homeowners.
Earlier this week Drew's attorney, Norman Kent, responded to the board's action by filing a lawsuit against the city. He says he will argue that Miami's adult-material ordinance is unconstitutional, that Lambda was exempt from it, and that the city selectively enforced the law against Lambda. The city made a decision that's going to cost them thousands of dollars and cause them embarrassment, he vows. I'm prepared to challenge it in circuit court and I'm prepared to prevail.