By Michael D. Clark
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Burress

SHARONVILLE - Citizens for Community Values officials say they have surveyed 174 Tristate hotels for the launch of a nationwide effort to label what they call pornography-free or "clean" hotels.

"We're going on the offensive, and we're going to stay on the offensive," said Phil Burress, president of the Sharonville-based CCV, one of the nation's most visible anti-pornography groups.

In releasing the survey, Mr. Burress said Monday that CCV not only wants to make it easier for individuals and families to find hotels that do not offer adult movies, but also to promote hotels locally and nationally that do not carry such fare.

ON THE WEB

CCV officials say 98 of 174 Tristate hotels reported they did not offer adult pay-per-view movies. Those 98 hotels are listed on a CCV-sponsored Web site, www.cleanhotels.com because the CCV "wants to reward hotels who have chosen not to get involved in the pornography business," Phil Burress said.

"And we are also providing a list of hotels that do offer adult movies to local prosecutors," Mr. Burress said, referring to the group's recent campaign where supporters check in to the hotels and videotape adult movies, forwarding a copy to authorities and pressuring for obscenity charges. In the next six months, he said, CCV plans to have surveyed hotels in every major city in America.

Scott Greenwood, general counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Ohio, criticized the CCV's hotel campaign - and the labeling of hotels as either "clean" or "dirty" depending on whether they offer adult movies - as "a Taliban -type tactic."

"If they want to provide a listing service so that people who share the same narrow-mindedness - that's fine. But some of these hotels have bars and even mini-bars in their rooms. Kids can get into mini-bars, too. Are they going to start listing those hotels?" said Mr. Greenwood.

Two Tristate hotels - Red Roof Inn in Clermont County's Union Township and the Marriott at Union Center Boulevard in Butler County's West Chester Township - are under investigation for showing in-room adult movies, spurred by complaints from the CCV to prosecutors. The latest investigations come three months after CCV took the same approach involving Comfort Suites and Travelodge in Newport, and the Marriott Northeast in Warren County.

Faced with prosecutors' threats of criminal or civil action, those three businesses removed the adult movies.

CCV officials say their recent CCV phone survey of 174 hotels in the eight counties - Hamilton, Butler, Warren, Clermont in Ohio; Boone, Kenton and Campbell in Kentucky; and Dearborn in Indiana - showed 98, or 56 percent, reported they did not offer adult pay-per-view movies to guests.

Those results are in line with national hotel experts who estimate that about 40 percent of hotels nationwide offer adult movies.

Patricia Carroll, co-owner of the Kings Island Holiday Inn Express in Warren County, said her hotel has long avoided carrying such movies.

"We have a lot of families stay here. It's choice, and we've done this for years and years," she said.

Arnie Creinin, vice president and managing director of the Drawbridge Villager Premier in Covington, said he is investigating how the hotel, which has 483 rooms and is the largest in Northern Kentucky, can get out of its contract with a pay-per-view company that provides the in-room adult movies.

Adult movies help hotels stay competitive, said Bart Hacker, public affairs director for the Ohio Hotel & Lodging Association.

"A lot of my hoteliers have told me that's it's a competitive thing. Competitors will offer it, and they don't want to lose that business to somebody else."

He said the Tristate cases have caused a stir among Ohio hoteliers, who have been calling the association trying to figure out whether to pull the service.

"I've been telling our hoteliers not to panic, not to be knee-jerk. Nobody's brought a suit. It's a media scare campaign," he said.

Sheila McLaughlin contributed to this report. E-mail mclark@enquirer.com

Sunday reports:
•Anti-porn crusader takes fight to hotels
• Burress' hatred of porn rooted in his former love for it
• What they say about Burress and CCV