The Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) launched an initiative that will require condoms on porn shoots in the Los Angeles County as a condition for obtaining a permit.

Michael Weinstein, president of the AHF, has thus far collected 371,000 signatures over the past five months, exceeding the minimum signatures of 232,000 that are needed to qualify for the ballot.

This health permit is very similar to the ones required by barbershops, tattoo parlors, massage parlors and bathhouses.

The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal-OSHA) currently requires porn actors to wear barriers (condoms), once in contact with bodily fluids. However, due to the lack of enforcement, it is overtly violated and a challenge for the state. Also, it doesn’t help that the Cal-OSHA is not precisely aimed at the adult film industry.

Adult film producers protest the sight of a condom in a sex scene is a turn off to consumers. Steven Hirsch, co-chairman and founder of adult film company Vivid Entertainment, claims that an overwhelming amount of consumers have expressed they would prefer to watch films without condoms.

Hirsch had previously stated to AHF that his company has a “condom –optional policy and leaves it up to performers.”

It is now in the hands of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors to finalize the initiative by putting the measures on the ballot that is planned for this November.

If endorsed by voters, the measure will require adult film producers to pay a fee to acquire a permit from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. Actors will be forced to use condoms for all intercourse sexual acts, whether anal or vaginal. Officials will have the authority to suspend or revoke the permit for any violations and could serve civil fines up to $1,000. Producers can also be indicted with misdemeanor criminal charges.

This requirement will apply to all shoots in 85 of 88 cities that make up the Los Angeles County including the city of Los Angeles and San Fernando Valley which has been dubbed "Porn Valley".