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Banned in West Roxbury: Group tries to keep the Phoenix out of the neighborhood
By adamg on Thu, 01/24/2008 - 12:50pm
The West Roxbury Bulletin reports on a group of West Roxbury residents trying to get the Phoenix banned from the neighborhood because of its adult ad section.
Support Community Decency, Inc. claims it's already gotten several stores - and the Centre Street post office - to stop allowing distribution of the free paper. But Gary's Liquors on the VFW Parkway is refusing, so they're trying to organize protests outside the store at their Saturday meetings at the West Roxbury library. It's organized by Bob Joyce, who ran an unsuccessful 2004 campaign to unseat state Sen. Marian Walsh after she came out in favor of same-sex marriage.
Joyce tells the Bulletin:
"This is not a freedom of speech issue, since we are not deciding whether or not this material is obscene. We are saying that it is indecent, sexually exploitive, and has potential to cause significant harm, physical and emotional, to West Roxbury families. We have a right to oppose the distribution of the Boston Phoenix in a lawful, peaceful way."
The West Roxbury Transcript quotes a Phoenix editor that this is a freedom-of-speech issue because Joyce is a right winger upset with the Phoenix's political stands - and quotes the owner of Gary's Liquors as saying Joyce came into his store and started threatening him.
Neither the Bulletin nor the Transcript asked Joyce why he's more concerned about the moral turpitude of West Roxbury than Roslindale, where he lives.
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Comments
What a tool
I'm standing with Gary. And not just because he keeps me drunk.
I bet Joyce is one of these closet pervert types.
A Craig Conservative?
Bob's just taking a "wide stance" on prurient materials, that's all.
Quite the low-budget Anthony Comstock, eh?
Maybe a Charlie Doyle Catholic as well?
When I lived in WR, the local state rep
was Charlie Doyle. Virulently homophobic, right wing,
anti-abortion, and more-Catholic-than-thou.
A confirmed bachelor, he lived with his sainted
mother....wonder if Bob Joyce remembers him?
repky to Charlie Doyle diatribe
Charlie was indeed pro-life...but I never knew him to be virulently homophobic or right wing. In fact, he was a fiscal liberal. Please do not disparage this good person with your stereotypes and angry language.
My kids reaction to
My kids reaction to recycle-bin encounters with the Phoenix Classified section is as follows:
This is followed by them placing the offending section under the pile of papers and well out of sight. Oh, but it damages my family when my husband and I laugh at the spectacle!
Gotta wonder - if the Joyce kids are interested in this at all, could it be forbidden-fruit and sexual repression? Could it be overexposure by parents hell bent on screaming FILTH while showing them explicit material? What gives?
Frankly, this crusade for decency doesn't have bullmuffins to do with "protecting children". This is about imposing a moralistic standard on everybody in the community with the excuse of protecting children. How dumbed down and can you get? Yeah, lets make the world a farking play pen so nobody ever wants sex. Uhhuh.
How dare Joyce claim to speak for "families"? I don't want their kind anywhere near my kids, thank you very much! They should go protect their own family from their ridiculous purity fetishes and leave everyone else and other families out of it.
Oh, and maybe they should stop bringing their kids to the packy, too!
It's a scandal! It's an outrage!
You mean you bring that filth INTO YOUR HOME??? Call the mayor! Call the MSPCC! Sound the alarm! CATS AND DOGS LIVING TOGETHER!!!!!
The article says: Joyce said that he was a practicing Catholic, and was not married with children.
Does that "not" belong there? Because if so, this whole thing makes even less sense to em.
Practicing behind the barn
He said he was practicing. He didn't say he had it down pat yet.
He's just thinking about the little children -- probably way too much.
Next target: Rock music and dancing?
Great, now I'll be thinking about the movie Footloose all day.
Poor Bob, his failed candidacy couldn't save us from the significant harm, physical and emotional, to West Roxbury families of gay marriage so now he's taking on the massage industry. Alert the authorities to start monitoring the public restrooms just in case.
Every community has one.
Psst, don't tell Bob Joyce...
I heard that there's a copy of The Adventures
of Huck Finn in the West Roxbury Library!
Oh, it's far, far worse than that
Look at all the smut on the shelves at the BPL West Roxbury branch, right where Joyce and his fellow Great Americans meet! My God, they even have copies of books by Henry Miller! I'm surprised they haven't tried organizing a book burning right on the library steps, you know, the ones that lead up to the doors that haven't been open in 20 years (just like their minds, oh, snap).
paging Mr. Bradbury
"It was a pleasure to burn."
Wait, what...
OK, first of all, I don't read the Phoenix (no particular reason), but this story got me to click on their web site, which maybe earned them a few cents.
Second of all, what happened to "if you don't like something, you don't have to read it"?
And then there's this:
Joyce explained that SCD had its beginnings in the West Roxbury Post Office, where he picked up a copy of the Phoenix and was disheartened by the content. The adult section contained ads soliciting local young women in need of cash to become escorts. The ads promised $3,000 to $4,000 per week.
"Let’s think of who these local women in need of cash could be. It could be a single mother, or a young woman with a drug problem, or one whose mother or father is in need of an operation," said Joyce. "These ads are placed because they sometimes work, and the person who accepts is harmed. We want to say that we don’t want that type of solicitation in West Roxbury."
Sounds all noble and chivalrous on the face of it, but what's Joyce done for these poor single druggie orphan women lately? Wouldn't it be more productive to work to change society so nobody "needs" to become an escort instead of doing the easy thing and trying to get rid of one paper in one part of one city?
I see the article also quotes someone at a nearby pizza place who throws away the copies she gets (says she's tried to stop them from arriving, doesn't think the paper's appropriate for her establishment). That seems level-headed and reasonable. Some random guy trying to control what everyone else gets to read? Makes me twitchy.
By the by...
Does Bay Windows have any distribution outlets in West Roxbury? Might as well protect society from Teh Gays as long as we're protecting it from Teh Sexx0rs.
Bay Windows
Actually, when I went into Gary's Liquors yesterday (which I did after I read the accounts of this story; I don't even drink) to buy some Red Bull, grab a Phoenix (admittedly my first in a while) and to voice my support, I noticed that BAY WINDOWS is displayed right next to the Phoenix stand. I didn't grab one, of course, not that there's anything wrong with that. I certainly think it should be there.
Sweet...so is Mr. Joyce's
Sweet...so is Mr. Joyce's problem with the Phoenix, really, or is it with Gary?
Bay Windows
Bay Windows is also available at Gary's Liquors.
swwirrrleey girl
I am surprised, actually. I would have thought that the Phoenix issue would resonate for you- if for different reasons.
Boston has issues with trafficking and sexual exploitation- and the ads in the back of the Phoenix promote these crimes....
Sorry to be taking a humorless stance, but it is true.
Brings up a whole other set of issues
There've been several suburban prostitution busts of late, mostly based on Craigslist ads, but at least one of which involved Phoenix ads. It's something the Phoenix has to answer for, but I'm not sure the answer is some right-wing politician trying to tell people in one neighborhood (in which he doesn't even live) what to read.
Bob Joyce's habitat?
Where does Bob Joyce live? I thought it was Rozzie.....
Yes, he's a Rozzie resident
Guess he figured he'd get more sympathy over on Centre Street.
Root Causes
I'm sure that the issues you mention would magically go "poof" if the phoenix wasn't around. If anything, the paper provides a way for independent practice. Otherwise, a broker would have to be involved - for a huge cut of the procedes, oh yeah.
Not like these "issues" were around in Biblical times or anything, nosiree! They're all due to that newfangled newspaper thingy destroying famblies!
Gary is a great guy in
Gary is a great guy in general and especially in the community. Bob Joyce is pretty much a moron that no one listens to. Viva free speech.
should kids really be in a
should kids really be in a liquor store to begin with?
Time for a Boston English moment, with apologies to Adam
Don't know about liquor stores. But we did
used to hang around outside the "packies".
Good question, Lyss.
I say....probably not.
Answer
should kids really be in a liquor store to begin with?
Only if they're buying cigarettes, of course.
heh!
Yeah....right. LOL
Gary's Liquors
I love booze and hookers, so you know which side of the
issue that I stand on. My only problem with Gary "LobsterBoy" Park is the swag he sells at the front of the store. Not the booze. The T-shirts with Beer company promo's, the Guinness Stout Glasses, the Corona umbrellas, etc. I worked for a Beer Distributor for years, and they give this stuff FREE to the bars and liquor stores to give out as promotional materials. Gary is SELLING this stuff.
I am surprised he is not charging a buck for the Phoenix.
Also, along with Ronnie Perry and King Gaskins, Bobby Joyce was probably the best basketball player to come out of Catholic Memorial. Phenomenal athlete. Good guy too.
Why can't we all just get along? to quote Matin Luther er I mean Rodney King.
I actually asked Gary about
I actually asked Gary about the stuff at the front of the store. He said that the monies from those items are donated back to the community, one example being the $3000.00 he gives to sponsor the Children's Halloween party at area E5. The Parkway family day at Millenium Park, and various local youth sports, and local charity fundraisers.
Bob Joyce 2nd-time picketing outside Gary's 4/12/08...
.....did it happen? I was there at 1:30 pm, saw a paddy wagon & a police cruiser, but no sign of Bob and his crew...
Apparently so
See Morons on parade, part II.