Bob Buckhorn \nTAMPA, FL - "The patrons that go to (exotic dancing) clubs for (lap dancing) will just have to find another sport," says Tampa City Councilman Bob Buckhorn. "Adult (businesses) should not be a fill-contact sport." That comment comes as the council braces for a likely onslaught of debate Thursday night, when the council considers an outright ban on lap dancing at area strip clubs.
And a battle it could be, with opponents of the ban bringing in some serious muscle, including a national trade group, an economic impact study, a former medical examiner, and a flood of petitions, according to the St. Petersburg Times.
The proposed ordinance will require exotic dancers to perform six feet away from customers at minimum or face up to 60 days in jail and a $1,000 fine for each offense, the paper says. City attorneys say the law would make it easier to stop illegal sex and simulated sex acts at the clubs and lingerie modeling shops, not to mention stopping disease transmission. But the club owners say the city's real game is running them out of business, period.
"Physical contact is what some people come for," says Mons Venus club owner Joe Redner to the Times. "Some adults like to go to Disney World; that's their fantasy. Our fantasy has to do with people and love and sex have as much right to live our fantasy as they do to live their fantasy."
Redner also points up the strip clubs' economic impact. The businesses employ "literally thousands of people . . . that buy homes, have mortgages, rent apartments, buy clothes, groceries, cars, TVs, and have student loans," reads an ad he's placed in the Times. "They send their children to day care, school and college."
The paper says Redner even commissioned an all-out economic impact study by South Tampa consultant G. Hartley Mellish, formerly an economics professor at the University of South Florida.
The study says that, if you multiply the Mons Venus $2.9 million payroll, not counting the $10-14 million earned by the dancers, by a dozen clubs, the industry is paying workers in the Tampa area close to $150 million annually.
Seven Seas owner Larry Wolfe tells the Times he's collected over eight thousand petition signatures. The National Cabaret Association is sending a lobbyist to Tampa to speak and work against the proposed ordinance, including showing the council other ordinances which address their concerns without killing the strip clubs entirely.
But assistant Tampa city attorney Rick Fee tells the paper federal and state courts have always upheld local ordinances setting up no-touch zones between dancers and patrons - and he says that's the real reason why the clubs are going to war to stop the new ordinance.
