LOS ANGELES — A federal judge has agreed to a 14-day continuance for a hearing that will determine whether a group led by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation can intervene in Vivid Entertainment's lawsuit against Los Angeles County over implementation of Measure B.
U.S. District Judge Dean Pregerson agreed to continue a hearing on the intervenor's motion to join the case for April 15 at 10 a.m. A hearing on that motion had been first scheduled for April 1.
Vivid Entertainment attorneys Robert Corn-Revere, Paul Cambria and H. Louis Sirkin had requested a court date in late April to challenge the AHF's motion to get involved in the case, but Pregerson broke the middle ground and scheduled the hearing on Tax Day.
Vivid's attorneys — each in three different regions in the Midwest and Northeast U.S. — cited logistics and quick deadlines in their request to continue the motion through the end of the month.
AHF President Michael Weinstein earlier this month asked Pregerson to allow him and other proposed intervenors — AHF employees Marijane Jackson, Arlette De La Cruz, Mark McGrath and Whitney Engeran, as well as the AHF-funded Campaign Committee Yes on B — to intervene in Vivid's suit against the county.
Weinstein claims that at least two Los Angeles County supervisors have been critical over Measure B and that two other county officials — the county counsel and the public health director — have voiced skepticism over whether the law passed by voters can be enforced.
Weinstein and the proposed intervenors, as a result, are asking Pregerson to allow them to intervene.
To be admitted into a lawsuit, intervenors must have an interest in the subject matter of the original suit. The AHF spent $2 million to qualify Measure B on the Los Angeles County ballot.
Vivid is seeking injunctive relief over enforcement of Measure B, Los Angeles County's Safer Sex in the Adult Film Industry Act, which was approved by voters in November.
Vivid and two adult performers, Kayden Kross and Logan Pierce, filed their suit in January at U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.
In a declaration to the court, Weinstein wrote last week that county officials have been "hostile to the intent and purpose of Measure B for a number of years." Weinstein said he's sought for years means to compel the Public Health department to perform its "ministerial duties to protect the public health in the making of adult films."
Pregerson also scheduled Vivid to respond to the intervenors' motion by March 15, with intervenors' reply in support of its motion due April 1.