RED BANK BECOMES RED STATE!

Red State moral values crusaders have invaded Red Bank jeopardizing its reign as New Jersey's Hip City. A new town ordinance was approved 5-1 that controls the display of:

...any description, narrative account, display, depiction of a specified anatomical area or specified sexual activity containing in, or consisting of, a picture or other representation, publication, sound recording, live performance or film, which by means of posing, composition, format or animated sensual details, emits sensuality with sufficient impact to concentrate prurient interest in the area or activity.

The controversy started when a complaint was received that a store had some magazines with explicit material displayed in its window. Red Bank Councilman Pasquale Menna, the only person to vote against the ordinance, responded to this apparently way-unhip move by commenting, "other towns look to us to lead the way, and this ordinance makes us a laughing stock if we’re supposed to be a hip town." I don't know what to laugh at first. The ridiculous language of the ordinance? The fact that we "other towns" look to Red Bank to "lead the way"? Pardon the pun, but isn't this all a bit masturbatory?

My favorite part of the new ordinance is "emits sensuality with sufficient impact..." Could displaying Maxim qualify? Vogue? What about that sales girl in the Coco Pari window?

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to cause "significant impact" but I know it when I feel it.