Orange Beach city officials plan to investigate whether the city’s ordinance prohibiting vulgar and lewd displays sold inside stores can restrict the type of messaging on aerial banners flown over the city’s beaches.
The investigation comes after a plane flew a banner advertising a Texas woman’s OnlyFans account over the city’s beaches. A picture of the banner was captured and posted to an Orange Beach Facebook page, drawing outrage from the city’s mayor.
“It’s pornography,” said Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon. “It’s advertising pornography. Who am I to judge what adults do? But when you fly advertisement for a pornographic site down the beach in front of thousands of individuals including children, you are a sick individual.”
Kennon told AL.com he wasn’t sure what kind of jurisdiction the city has in restricting the message, but that he was willing to investigate.
He said it was his understanding that the Federal Aviation Administration controls banner planes, though an FAA official said the agency does not regulate the content of the messaging.
“This is the first advertisement I can think of that has been somewhat dark and distasteful or counter to our family-friendly brand,” Kennon said. “A few years back, we had problems with vulgar T-shirts and the T-shirt shops were bad. We put in an ordinance and (it cleaned it up).”
He added, “We have zero control on what can be put on the banners.”
Ian Gregor, spokesperson for the FAA, said the agency would be charged with overseeing the equipment of the banner planes, but not the messaging of the displays.
“A proposal to regulate the messages on banners is outside the FAA’s regulatory authority,” Gregor said.
Aerial ad bans
The city could push to use its vulgarity ordinance or institute a more widespread ban of aerial banners, which has been considered in only a few U.S. cities.
Banning aerial advertising is rare in the United States, but federal courts have upheld past challenges to banner ad restrictions in Honolulu, Hawaii.
The Hawaiian city’s aerial ad ban dates to 1978 and has been twice challenged in federal courts. Both times, the ordinance was upheld by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based in San Francisco.
The most recent action might be the most substantive for Orange Beach. In 2006, the appeals court ruled the airspace as a non-public forum and Honolulu’s ordinance banning aerial ads does not violate First Amendment free speech rights.
The case focused on graphic aerial banners paid for by an anti-abortion group that depicted aborted fetuses. The controversial banners were flown over the populated beaches of Hawaii.
The anti-abortion group did get a certificate of permission to fly its banners from the FAA, but it was prevented from doing so by the city’s ordinance.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider an appeal, and the city’s ordinance remains in effect.
“To my knowledge, nothing has changed, and the ban is still in place – there are no flying messages anywhere on O’ahu,” said Ian Scheuring, spokesperson for Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi. “On the whole, there are stricter laws here than in most places about preserving natural beauty and viewplanes – we do not allow billboards, either.”
OnlyFans
Orange Beach does not have an aerial advertising ban in place, but it does prohibit billboards.
In fact, the city stance against billboards was recently decided by the Alabama State Supreme Court and wrapped up lengthy litigation between the city and Mobile-based Lamar Companies over allegations of selective enforcement. The high court ruled in favor of the city, authorizing the removal of the last remaining billboard along Perdido Beach Boulevard within the city’s limits.
The concerns over the OnlyFans banner also puts the London-based company into the spotlight. OnlyFans was founded in 2016, but grew in popularity during the pandemic. While the company has become synonymous with pornography and adult videos, it is a subscription-based platform that has also hosted other content creators such as physical fitness experts and musicians.
The company did not respond to a request for comment.
Marcy Nicole Smith, the OnlyFans account advertised by the aerial banner, also could not be reached for comment. On her Facebook page, she defended her appearances on the website saying that selling content on the site has allowed her to give up a fear of other people’s opinions and improved her mental health.
“Using my looks to make money does not make me a bad person,” she posted recently. “I know my own character and that is all that matters.”
Kennon said he was unsure which billboard company flew the banner.
Family friendliness
Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon speaks ahead of participating in a ceremonial signing of a purchase agreement for the Foley Beach Express on Wednesday, May 22, 2024, at Foley City Hall. The state purchased the bridge for $60 million and will officially end the $5 one-way toll starting at noon on Thursday, May 23, 2024.John Sharp
The pushback against the OnlyFans banner is only the latest by Kennon and Orange Beach city officials who vow to keep the city – among Alabama’s most popular tourist destinations thanks to the beaches – as a “sanctuary city for families.”
Coffee shops, souvenir stores, jam bands and others have gotten attention because of Orange Beach’s efforts to maintain a certain level of family friendliness within the city.
The city’s ordinance addressing vulgar and lewd displays was adopted in 2013 after Kennon discovered controversial messages sold inside some of the souvenir stores within the Alabama beach city. Some of the shirts included obscene language and diagrams of oral sex, among other things.
The ordinance acknowledges that the city is “heavily invested” in protecting a family-friendly environment and that the “open display by merchants of merchandise and other display items” that can be considered offensive and are visible to children is “plainly destructive of the city’s family-friendly atmosphere.”
The ordinance does not specifically address other items aside from merchandise sold by merchants. It does not address signage.
Kennon, mayor of Orange Beach since 2009, has gotten media attention in the past for offering candid assessments over what he and other city officials consider as a lack of morals when it comes to businesses, events and other attractions on Alabama’s beaches.
The most recent example occurred in 2022, over the introduction of Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii.
Related content: ‘Slutty,’ ‘Bad Ass,’ ‘Wacked Out Weiner’: Provocative business names stir debates in Alabama
City officials, during a council meeting nearly two years ago, said the name was inappropriate for children. Kennon blasted the name for not respecting the “family-friendly” vacation destination brand the city has long tried to sell.
The company’s owner, however, said the name was not meant to be profane but to show “historical and cultural significance” toward donkeys that hauled coffee products in Hawaii.
Kennon was mocked on social media over the coffee fracas, but he said he remains undeterred.
“The more I get slings and arrows at me, it means that I’m doing something other than being a politician who is trying to get re-elected,” Kennon said. “My job is to protect Orange Beach and I will continue to do it and when people of Orange Beach are tired of it, they will vote me out of office, or they can kiss my bad ass cup of coffee.”
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
