A lot of you out there laughed when we started piling on the stories about the ban on lap dancing in Tampa like it was some big joke. Evidently ABC's 20/20 must have thought the same thing. That's why they ran an extensive piece on it Thursday Night.
Reporter Anderson Cooper said that the sex industry brings in about 100 million dollars a year [you read that right] to the city of Tampa. "But according to the city fathers, these establishments promote prostitution," said Anderson. The target is lap dancing. "Tampa has been called the Las Vegas of lap dancing," Cooper continued. Your basic lap dance cost $25 for four minutes of bump and grind, according to Cooper.
One of the dancers, Molly, from Mons Venus said that a girl could make $1,000 in a "short" night. The dancer said she didn't find the work demeaning. "I'm a registered voter and tax payer," said Molly who's married and the mother of two girls. Molly, who's also paying her way through college, studying to be a teracher, said she hasn't told her kids what she does for a living but is able to send them to private schools. "It's provided me a very good living and opportunities for myself and my children," she says of her chosen career. "I'm not having sex with anyone and I don't feel like I'm compromising my morals," Molly added. She said her livelihood, however, was being compromised.
According to the 20/20 report, city officials say they're targeting lap dancing to prevent lewd and lascivious conduct, prostitution and the transmission of disease. Police investigators said they were shocked about the goings-on at the clubs. "I had no idea, nor could I have imagined the activity that goes on at these establishments," Lt. Jane Castor was seen telling a city councilman meeting recently.
Joe Redner, owner of the Mons Venus, and the most visible combatant of the lap dance ordinance, was also interviewed. Redner said there was nothing illegal going on at his club. "The rules are that the guy cannot touch the girl between her legs. He can touch her any place else, but he can't touch her between her legs," Redner told reporters. Breasts and butts are fair game, Redner conceded. "It is very sexual. I certainly hope so."
Though Redner says it's not happening in his place, the 20/20 report does acknowledge there may be some illegal activity going on in other places but a lot of that activity may be going on in the dark or behind closed doors. "We would have to send police officers in there and get the lap dancers to solicit them for prostitution," said city councilman Bob Buckhorn who ramrodded the bill through council. "Now with the six foot distance separation, it will be much easier to make those cases."
The 20/20 report also showed footage of lap dancers coming out en masse to protest the proposed ordinance. "Unashamed, undeterred, the lap dancers fought back," said reporter Anderson Cooper. The report said that over 100 people showed up "in the full light of day" at the council meeting which reviewed the ordinance. A quick glance at the video footage supplied by ABC would tell you that was the classic understatement.
Cassandra Fuller a pregnant lap dancer told the city council that the activity doesn't degrade her, that she choose to do it. Another dancer, brimming with tears, claimed that lap dancing changed her life. "Before I got into this business, I had low esteem, no self-respect and was in an abusive relationship. I found the strength to end that relationship through this industry," she told the city council. Reporter Cooper said he was particularly surprised by the number of dancers who brought their husbands, boyfriends and children along to that council meeting. A quadraplegic was even wheeled in to testify that he has to rely on his sister's income and care. "Despite all the pleas, in the end, the lap dancers, lost," said Cooper.
While some clubs are complying, Redner said he will continue to fight. "I think I have a duty to violate that ordinance," Redner said. "It's civic disobedience, that's what it is.
"I'm not sure that Ghandi would consider lap dancing civil disobedience," Cooper said noting that Redner has become rich from it and last year earned 3 million from his club.
"Some of these guys drape the American flag around more things than I've ever seen," said Buckhorn. "They wave the First Amendment around like some constitutional hall pass that excuses every type of behavior that you can possibly imagine. They [the dancers] cannot portray this debate as either being faced with going on welfare or stripping as the only two occupations left in this world. The law is in place and those people violating it - performers, patrons and owners will go to jail."
Dancers from the Mons Venus told Coooper the ordinance would destroy their business. "A lot of these city council members don't know what it's like to not make enough income to take care of their family," one dancer said.
The 20/20 report drew these comments from Mike Ross who had been very instrumental in offering political resistance to this ordinance. Ross notes that Joe Redner has filed a lawsuit against the city of Tampa but chances are it's going to be difficult if near impossible to find a sitting judge to hear the case who'll be impartial.
Ross: "I thought 20/20 did a very good job on the story. My concern is that 40 million people watch this show. What are the odds that we had a couple of elected officials watch this show? I have a feeling what's going to happen is two things. By being so high profile, Joe Redner, i.e., the industry in Tampa has literally thumbed their nose at law enforcement in that city. As a result, law enforcement is going to have to do something. I think this weekend they're really going to start knocking people. The second thing is, the ramifications around the country are going to be dramatic. But I have a feeling that a lot of cities this morning woke up with a city councilman calling a city attorney saying by the 15th of January have something in front of us so we can do a six foot setback. I am extremely concerned about that.
"Part of the overall premise, politically, is do what one other city has done so you don't have to reinvent the wheel - the six foot setback thing. I don't believe we can fight the six foot setback. I think we can fight the tipping issues, the licensing issues, the hours of operation, but this has been upheld several times in several jurisdictions. In fact ten foot is what has been set up in Seattle and in other cities. Six foot should stand up. The attorneys are not looking at some of the issues we're bringing up like consumers have a right to sue; the handicapped have a right to sue. They're not looking at those kinds of things. What we need to do is pick some new avenues, some new directions and some new case law to support us.
"I think we can do that, but what's happening here is that this whole industry is fractured. Your guys, my guys, dancers, everybody wants to do whatever they want. The strategy that we've used all over the country, i.e., keeping it out of the press, has worked fantastically. But I consider this to be a loss on my side even though I had no control over it. Once the media picked it up, it was gone. But I had a very good record going in of nothing ever passing in the country when I've been involved with it. Because we keep it low key. Because we do the right thing. Because we play the game the way it's supposed to be. When you keep rubbing peoples' noses in the problem, they have to vote against us.
"Part of the funny thing, Tigre [the weeping woman mentioned in the story] the next day went to New Orleans. That's another story. She was one of a few dozen entertainers who immediately left the city not to be arrested. The lady they focused the story on [Molly], I was sitting right next to her. I was looking for myself on TV. She did one helluva job. I didn't think the story was going to take that focus. I thought 20/20 was going to a more in depth analysis. Once the shoe drops and there's an arrest, or another city introduces an ordinance like this, 20/20 is going to come back and do some kind of story that does a wide ranging, throughout the industry review as to ordinances and law. This is a good sex story. But I would have been happier if it did not air. That would have kept ideas out of peoples' minds."
