Back in March, the mayor of Los Angeles signed a city ordinance requiring adult performers to wear condoms on all adult shoots within the city limits that required a film permit – which was a limited restriction, since few porn shoots shot in places where they needed a permit, and could just move outside the city. But on the ballot yesterday was Measure B, a law that would extend the ordinance county wide, which ended up passing, with 55.85 percent of the vote.

The measure would require producers of adult films to obtain a public health permit from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, which could be revoked or suspended if county inspectors found on-set violations of the new law.
According to the measure, anyone on set found to be in violation of the law can be fined up to $1,000, jailed up to six months, or both, adding that each violation found will be punishable as a separate offense.
Producers would have to apply for the permits, prove they completed a training course on blood-borne pathogens and submit a plan for exposure control before they could receive a permit. [NBCLA]

The law was funded by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, who poured $1.65 million into the campaign. Their own numbers cited eight cases of adult film-related HIV infections since 2004, only half of those having contracted it during adult films. And, as far as I can tell, none having contracted it while complying with current HIV-testing standards. Some of the retarded loopholes in those standards (which basically included having an HIV test every 30 days) included that they weren’t doing it in gay porn, despite 80 percent of new HIV infections coming from the gay community. Basically, instead of strengthening enforcement of the current standards, which were working when they were enforced, they created an entirely new one, which performers are probably going to avoid by shooting somewhere else anyway. As a Californian, I can assure you, this is a perfect example of California politics in action.

Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation which advocated for mandatory condom use, said it remains to be seen how the county plans to enforce the new law.

And remember, that’s coming from the guy who was trying the hardest to get it passed.

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Fire at will, Arnie.

TMZ reported yesterday that Terminator 2 actor Edward Furlong, now 35, was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend, and it was a confusing read at first, because I had just assumed he had been in jail this whole time for drugs or whatever, but apparently I was wrong. I blame myself for letting my subscription to Actors Who Destroyed Their Lives Before 30 Digest.

According to TMZ…

Edward Furlong was released from an L.A. jail last night following his domestic violence arrest — and he looked like a harbinger of death on his way out, wearing a Halloween-appropriate skull t-shirt.

The troubled “Terminator 2″ star was released around 6:30 PM on $50,000 bail.

Police are still deciding whether or not to press criminal charges, but this is Los Angeles, where actresses can run over small children, drive hammered wasted and high on cocaine and play real-life Spy Hunter on the L.A. freeways without a driver’s license, and they’ll actually be assigned someone to do community service for them. So there’s a strong chance that Furlong will receive a commendation from the mayor.

But if I can, I’d like to take a moment to talk to the ladies here for a new segment I’m calling FilmDrunk’s Female Fortune Telling (or something more clever).

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Anthony “Chopper” Garcia was arrested in 2008 in Los Angeles after a homicide investigator was flipping through snapshots and saw a picture of Rivera’s chest tattoos. Displayed proudly across his chest is a depiction of a 2004 liquor store murder during which Rivera shot and killed another man.

Each key detail was right there: the Christmas lights that lined the roof of the liquor store where 23-year-old John Juarez was gunned down, the direction his body fell, the bowed street lamp across the way and the street sign — all under the chilling banner of RIVERA KILLS, a reference to the gang Rivera-13.

As if to seal the deal, below the collarbone of the gang member known by the alias “Chopper” was a miniature helicopter raining down bullets on the scene. (Los Angeles Times)

This week, Garcia’s cooperation in prison has led to the arrest of another man linked to a gang murder that the same investigator didn’t think would ever be solved. Now if they could only tell me what my tramp stamp means. It’s an arrow with “Entre aqui”. Damn, I love a good mystery.

Brüno recently did a photoshoot for the latest issue of GQ in which goofed around with L.A.’s Birmingham high school football team.  Now the school superindendent is angry about it because… uh… it takes the attention away from the fact that most of his students can’t read?

The stunt has incensed Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, adding fuel to a debate over whether Birmingham, in Lake Balboa, should be allowed to convert to a charter school. The charter conversion is up for a vote before the school board Wednesday. “This recent GQ thing has not helped matters,” Cortines said today. “We’ve allowed our students to be used, and not in the most glamorous circumstances, either.” [LATimes]

Actually, the students used you.  Namely your jerseys.  Wait, what’s this about charter school?

[Birmingham HS] has broken away from the nation’s second-largest school district. The move came one day after officials with the Los Angeles Unified School District disciplined two administrators over violating the district’s policy on using the school’s name in the film. The charter proposal ends the district’s authority over school employees, so the disciplinary action will be moot. [Yahoo]

Wow, so a school gets one magazine spread and suddenly it’s too good to hang with the schools it grew up with?  Sounds like L.A. alright.  Stay tuned for next week, when Birmingham High develops an eating disorder and f*cks David Spade.