"The show will go on," the group’s lead singer Billy Tourtelot told a reporter for the Associated Press on Monday following the city council vote. "It will be available on the Internet, and it will be in the city limits." 

"This show is far more than a typical Hell On Earth performance," Tourtelot said in an e-mail to the Associated Press last week. "This is about standing up for what you believe in, and I am a strong supporter of physician-assisted suicide."

The controversy broke a few weeks back when the group announced that their October 4th concert at the Palace Theater in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida, would include a live suicide from the stage. 

Once the story broke the venue quickly pulled the plug and other venues in the city refused to book the show. 

The group claims that the planned suicide by a terminally ill person was planned to bring awareness to “right to die” issues. Assisted suicide is illegal in Florida. 

After being turned away from alternate venues, the band reportedly booked an undisclosed venue within the city limits of St. Petersburg, where they will host a private concert that will include the suicide. They plan to broadcast the event live from their website. 

The latest effort to stop the suicide occurred on Monday morning when the St. Petersburg city council unanimously passed an emergency ordinance that makes staging a suicide for commercial or entertainment purposes illegal within the city limits. 

The city council believes that this is just a publicity stunt but passed the ordinance just in case the group was serious about going through with it. 

The city also seeks to get a court injunction to bar the group from going through with the suicide and that also keeps them from advertising the event. 

The group apparently isn’t worried about the legal consequences of going forward with the onstage suicide. If they violate the city ordinance, they face up to 60 days in jail and a $500 fine. One sticking point is a Florida law that states assisting another person in committing suicide is a manslaughter. The group claims that they are not assisting in the suicide. 

"This person will be doing this self-deliverance totally by themselves, on their own accord," Tourtelot said. 

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