LECHEROUS MAYOR DEFENDS “GOD COPPING”
The (Columbia, S.C.) Free Times has an interesting story up this week in which Steve Benjamin – the mayor of South Carolina’s capital city – defends spending more than $250,000 of taxpayer money to shut down an adult novelty story within his city’s limits.
The Taboo store – which we’ve defended in the past – apparently rubbed some city leaders the wrong way (no, it is not double entendre day).
“The fight certainly cost more than anyone expected but it was still a fight worth fighting,” Benjamin told Free Times.
Really?
Let’s not forget, this is the guy who was busted hand-picking strippers from a “menu of flesh” in Orlando, Florida – all of it paid for by a corrupt developer.
He seriously wants to crow about spending tax money to enforce some antiquated definition of morality?
Speaking of antiquated, Free Times reporter Eva Moore landed perhaps the quote of the year from the owner of the store, Jeffrey White, who said the city could have just waited him out giving his dying business model.
“We are nearing the end of the good old days of selling realistic dicks and vaginas,” White told Moore.
Ha!
Ah yes, the good old days …
To be clear, we oppose this governmental sanctimoniousness on principle. In fact we’ve published a number of stories slamming the holier-than-thou “God-copping” that goes on in cities like Greenville, S.C.
But for Columbia’s mayor to engage in this sort of moralistic heavy-handedness?
That’s a pretty astounding level of hypocrisy … not to mention a silly waste of money coming from a guy who ought to be watching every penny now that his signature “economic development” deal is going belly-up.
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