It is now legal to sell sex toys in Sandy Springs. The City Council, facing possible defeat in a lawsuit, has voted to delete an ordinance that deemed obscene any devices marketed “for the stimulation of human genital organs” and that made it a crime to distribute such items.
While the city contends it never enforced the law, it had been challenged by the adult bookstore Inserection and by two individuals.
In an unusual decision last August, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta upheld the city’s ordinance but noted it was only following a precedent set in 2004, when it upheld a similar sex-toy ban in Alabama. The court said it now believed the Alabama case had been wrongly decided.
The judges encouraged the Sandy Springs plaintiffs to ask the entire 11th Circuit Court to reconsider the issue and set a new precedent. On March 14, the appeals court threw out the previous ruling and agreed to re-hear the case.
The anti-sex toy law dates to Sandy Springs’ incorporation in 2005 and mirrored a provision in state law – since invalidated – regarding adult devices. City officials declined to comment, saying the matter is in litigation.
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