City Wants Playboy Off Library Shelves

Count all the Playboy magazines currently on the shelves of South King County libraries and you'll arrive at a figure that might surprise a few people:

One.

Count all the Playboys intact with the magazine's trademark glossy, air-brushed nude photos - the center of a debate in Federal Way - and the surprise might run still further:

None.

Such facts, however, aren't likely to cool the debate, which warmed a degree or two last night as the Federal Way City Council asked the King County Library Board to keep Playboy behind a counter rather than on the shelves of its new regional library in Federal Way.

A resolution passed 4-0 with three abstentions after some discussion about whether it was the council's role to make requests of another governmental body.

About 30 people attended the half-hour meeting. Four people spoke in favor of the resolution, one against.

"You'll just be beating a dead horse," John Metcalf told the council before its vote. "Censorship has been accomplished already."

He might be right.

Playboy's March issue made its appearance on the new library's shelves yesterday at 12:30 p.m. About an hour and a half later, it was gone, probably stolen, said a clerk. That makes three issues put on shelves, three stolen since the library opened in December.

"We're just asking that some discretion be used in what our children are exposed to," said Tammy Tavares, leader of a drive that has collected more than 2,000 signatures protesting the library policy.

If Playboy continues to be stolen, the library probably will put it behind a counter anyway, as is done at other branches where theft is a problem, said Jeanne Thorsen, a county library spokeswoman.

A visit to the new regional library shows that the magazine has a home between Physics Today and Popular Mechanics, on a middle rack, about 3 1/2 feet high - but no rack label. "Someone tore it off," said a clerk.

What people would get if they could look inside the March issue is Playboy's typical mixture of writing and photos, including a newsy analysis of attitudes toward AIDS in light of Magic Johnson's announcement that he has the virus which causes the disease, and a nude pictorial of a Harley-Davidson-riding L.A. woman who is working on giving up "cussing like a truck driver."

The Kent Library currently has the only other Playboy within reach of youngsters. It's a worn January 1991 edition with a brown paper-bag cover that says "No pictures." It's kept in a box, underneath the shelf that displays current editions of magazines.

Readers and lookers can see a pictorial of (a tuxedo-clad) hockey star Wayne Gretzky and an interview with automaker Lee Iacocca, but no skin. Even semi-risque advertisements have been torn out.

"No, we don't censor," said a library clerk. "Someone came in and did that."

She smiled and shrugged, acknowledging that Playboy touches a sensitive nerve in Kent, too. Other librarians and clerks in South County libraries had similar responses when the subject came up.

It's so sensitive that all but one librarian contacted said they had been instructed to refer all questions to Thorsen, the library system's spokeswoman.

What Thorsen said is this:

-- The county library system has 37 branches, and 11 carry Playboy.

-- The magazine is kept on the shelves of five: Federal Way Regional, Kent, North Bend, Mercer Island and Shoreline.

-- It's kept at a reference desk, but available to everyone, at Valley View, Fairwood, Bellevue, Kirkland, Bothell and Snoqualmie.

The county has an open-access policy. All patrons can check out all material. The only time a magazine is restricted, or put behind a desk and available on a request-only basis, is when it's often stolen or defaced.

That happens with several magazines, among them Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Bride, Nintendo Power - and Playboy.

So obtaining past editions is hit and miss - mostly miss. Kent tries to keep a year's worth but has just the one defaced copy. Fairwood has a current issue but a clerk there said all but one issue from 1991 has been stolen.

At two of South County's larger city libraries, Renton and Auburn, there is no problem with Playboy: They don't have it.

Renton gets about one request a year for Playboy, said Clark Petersen, head librarian.

"I would ask, `Is this art or not?' " he said. "Besides, if it's going to get stolen all the time, what's the point?"

In her 6 1/2 years as library director in Auburn, Mary Stanton said she hasn't received a single request for the magazine.