Flint, Mich., Reveals Wacky View of Alleged 'Obscene' Images

FLINT, Mich.—Flint, Mich., hasn't exactly had a good reputation since Michael Moore's Academy Award-winning documentary Roger & Me, about the closing of the city's main business, the General Motors assembly plant. And then there's the $30 million in debt it had accumulated by 2002, which left it unable to carry on many necessary community activities and resulted in the razing (and planned razing) of about 4,100 homes. And all that was before right-wing nutbar Rick Snyder was elected governor and appointed an "emergency manager" to run the town—during whose tenure, the city's debt shrank to "just" $19 million. So one might be excused for thinking that the city would welcome the revenue it derives from taxes and use fees from the popular Déjà Vu adult cabaret (or "strip club" in common parlance) on Dort Highway on the city's east side—but instead, Flint City Attorney Pete Bade is thinking of charging the club with obscenity for its digital billboard advertising the club's dancers and services (which include a "love boutique"). "People have been bothered by that sign for a while," Bade told Adrian Hedden of mlive.com. "It's been a gross escalation of obscene images recently. It's offensive in a number of ways and it doesn't give people a choice. The sign is very large. It's essentially a huge, flat-screen TV. It doesn't allow parents to divert their children's attention." But while most of the frequently-changing images on the billboard are incredibly benign—a pair of high-heeled shoes, a "Twitter bird" looking at a pair of bikini'd buttocks or a sillhouette of a dancer's midsection overlaid with a black banner hiding the groin area—things get a bit racier at night, with images like a bikini'd dancer bending over backwards with a man's head near her well-hidden labia (pictured)—and that seems to be what Bader and others are unhappy with. However, as soon as someone complained about the image, Flint Déjà Vu manager Karen Gay had it taken off the screen immediately. "We received a complaint from someone who said a particular slide on our sign offended him and his children," Gay said. "We took out the slide right away. We're not here to offend people. That's not the intention. There was no legal issue here, but we took it down because people were offended." But that doesn't seemed to have placated the city's leadership. "It can and will be regulated," Bade said. "There's freedom of expression, but also the public welfare. We need to balance those two concerns. We want to be careful that everything we do is constitutional ... Obscene images should not be tolerated. Any person applying contemporary community standards would find that patently offensive." "There are a lot of people who do care about this place, and want to see Flint come back," said Lin Yang, owner of the Empress of China restaurant several blocks from the club. "This isn't good for our image. There is no regulation here." Lotsa luck bringing Flint "back" with Rick Snyder at the "helm"!