Palm Springs Hotel Porn An Issue For Candidate?

INNdulge. It’s not just the name of Palm Springs City Council candidate John Williams’ clothing optional gay resort. It’s also the name of a frisky gay pornographic flick shot at his hotel.
Williams, who has owned INNdulge Hotel for 10 years along with his partner Jean-Guy LaChance, is not a producer. But he has rented his award-winning hotel to studios such as Falcon and Catalina to use for adult films.
Films such as “Full Up!” “Desert Hart” and “INNdulge Palm Springs” were filmed in the mid to late 1990s. Williams, 54, said it was “a business decision” to allow the shoots.
“I have never made movies myself,” said Williams. “I’m in the business of renting hotel rooms to groups. I rent to all kinds of groups, for birthdays, ceremonies and special occasions. It’s strictly a business decision.”
Reports in the Bottom Line, a Palm Springs-based gay magazine, and several calls to The Desert Sun have brought a well –known, open secret into the campaign.
“Don’t be surprised if INNdulge seems familiar, it has served as the setting for a number of adult films, which are available in the hotel’s lending library,” The Weekly News, South Florida’s gay newspaper, wrote in September 2004.
As one of five candidates vying for two open positions on the Palm Springs City Council, Williams stresses his tourism background and hotel experience as reasons why he is qualified to run the city of more than 42,000 people. It shouldn’t matter that he has allowed pornography to be filmed, he said. Pornography is legal and it won’t affect how he runs the city if he is elected, he added.
And he is qualified to be a councilmember, said Melinda Tremaglio, president of the National Organization of Women Palm Springs Chapter.
“What he does in his business is not important,” said Tremaglio, who was on Arenas Road in Palm Springs Wednesday for a lunch meeting. “We endorsed him because of his attitude toward bringing changes to the community. I don’t care about his business practices.”
Business practice or not, voter and Human Rights Commission member Judith Doyle said allowing pornography to be filmed is “offensive.”
“I find it disheartening John hasn’t come forward about this,” said Doyle, a personal life coach in Palm Springs. She added this this “not behavior that is acceptable to me as a voter.”
The bottom line, she said is that allowing gay pornography to be filmed is part of his business world and must affect his decision making.
“I do not feel comfortable electing a City Council person who has these kinds of accusations,” she said.
from The Desert Sun