The paper reviews the actual state and local obscenity statutes and compared them with the working definition of obscenity employed by law enforcement agents. The city has been under considerable pressure from moral entrepreneurs (mostly local ministers) to more stringently enforce obscenity statutes. We found that law enforcement personnel assigned to vice perceived pornography to be a serious local crime problem. While some officers questioned the value of increased moral entrepreneurship and the impact of the 1986 Meese Commission report on pornography, most recognized that citizen complaints generated the majority of their arrest warrants. Given their concerns over the lack of community willingness to eliminate pornography and the probable relations of the ACLU and other civil libertarian organizations to stepped up enforcement, we discovered the local police sought merely to control the type of pornographic material sold in the city rather than eliminate its presence. The police in effect have accepted the role of being the community's moral guardians. (Author abstract)