Chatsworth Will Have To Soldier On Somehow Without Hot Pockets And Porn

The Hot Pockets facility in Chatsworth is leaving and going to Kentucky. Penthouse is no longer shooting any of their adult films in Chatsworth. These are sad days for the Valley. The reason Nestle USA is moving their Hot Pockets operations from Chatsworth to Mt. Sterling, KY is that they simply had no room for expansion in Chatsworth, L.A. Times reports. Once they get to Kentucky, they’re going to drop $13 million, hire 150 people, and start a 24/7 cycle of production on their flaky microwavable pastries filled with cheese-ish, meat-ish goo. That's right. Every minute of every day, someone will be fabricating a Hot Pocket.

But what of those Chatsworth workers? There, 360 employees stand to lose their jobs, though Nestle says some may be able to apply and relocate to Kentucky.

And what about Penthouse? We will pause for you to make any and all related pornography/Hot Pocket puns.

Anyhow, porn production is way, way down in L.A. these days, but that's not because people aren't making any new porn—they're just making it elsewhere. Just the other day, WoodRocket (who does not shoot in L.A.) announced they'd wrapped on their Dr. Who porn parody, Dr. Whore—The XXX Parody.

There were only 40 permits issued for porn last year, which is 90 percent less than 2012, L.A. Times reports. And in 2014, there have only been 20 permits issued.

The dramatic drop is related to Measure B, which passed in 2012 and now requires performers to wear condoms when shooting. Porn performers and producers are opposed to this for several reasons, including their insistence that their own rigorous testing system is more effective, the lack of audience demand for porn with condoms and something called condom rash, which apparently occurs during the marathon sessions performers engage in while filming a scene.

Chatsworth’s Penthouse Entertainment isn’t shooting locally anymore; Vivid Entertainment near Universal Studios isn’t shooting in L.A.; and with a bill circling that may make condoms mandatory in adult films shot in the entire state of California, San Francisco fetish company Kink is now shooting in Vegas.

Jobs lost in the adult industry are even more numerous than those lost by the closing of the Hot Pockets' plant. Makeup artists, caterers, camera crews, photographers and others all stand to lose work from the former billion-dollar industry that once employed between 10,000-20,000 in L.A..

Of course, there's also the distinct possibility that porn companies just aren't applying for permits and are shooting underground, which is just the kind of thing that veteran adult star Nina Hartley warned would make performers considerably less safe than just allowing them to regulate themselves.