BY MIRANDA MATTHEIS / Campus Editor

Guys and gals, put your toys away. Alabama law now officially bans the distribution of sex toys.

This follows the Oct. 1 decision of the United States Supreme Court declining to hear a case involving the law.

In 1998, Alabama enacted an anti-obscenity law to ban the distribution of “any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs for anything of pecuniary value.”

However, Sherri Williams, owner of Pleasures in Huntsville and Decatur, challenged the ban. Now, nine years later, a decision has been reached and Alabama officials can begin enforcing the original ban. 

Ross Winner, general manager of Love Stuff in Montgomery, Oxford and Hoover, said his stores are still in compliance with the law, and therefore will not discontinue sales.

The stores are in compliance under the exception policy written in the law, which states that such items can be purchased if they will be used for “bona fide medical, scientific, educational, legislative, judicial or law enforcement purposes.” 

“We have been operating under the state of Alabama’s law under the exception policy for over two years,” Winner said. “We have trained our staff on the exception policy. We have classes on it.”

He said all people who enter his stores, and are at least 18 years of age, can purchase sex toys for a medical, scientific, educational, legislative, judicial or law enforcement purpose.

To enforce this, Winner said customers sign their receipt at the time of purchase stating they are in compliance with one of the exceptions stated in Alabama law. He said by doing that, he is protecting himself and the customers. 

Winner said he has several problems with the law. The medical part of the law is not clear. Winner compared purchasing a sex toy to brushing teeth. He said hygiene is a person’s medical reason for brushing their teeth, whether or not a doctor tells them to.

“The same thing applies to our store,” he said. “It is a source of self-medication.”

He also said there is a training issue with enforcing the law.

”Most police have zero training when they come into a situation like ours and they don’t know what to take or not take if we were not in compliance,” he said. “We feel that we are definitely in compliance with the state of Alabama exception law.”

Winner said he doesn’t agree with the wording of the law, particularly the word “designed.”

“Are we talking 51 percent designed? 90 percent designed? What percentage of that is designed to meet that need?” he said. 

Winner said there are other products on the market that could be used for the same purpose, but that are not initially designed “for the stimulation of human genital organs.”

He said because of the unclear parts of the law, there would not be definitive answers in the legal aspect of a case if one were brought forth. 

“Forty-seven states have no problem with what we do,” he said. “It’s Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi…that have the problems.” 

Lee County District Attorney Nick Abbett said he is unaware of any adult novelty stores in the county.