At least one strip club owner isn't worried about whether the city will enforce its new ban on lap dancing - the owner is all but daring the city to arrest him.
The Mons Venus is Tampa's best known exotic dancing club and owner Joe Redner thinks Mayor Dick Greco can't enforce the ordinance even if he wants to. Meanwhile, it's lap dancing as usual inside the club despite the new law which mandates dancers performing six feet or further back from customers.
In fact, Redner has posted a message on the Mons Venus's roadside sign on North Dale Mabry Highway: "Greco/You Coward/Enforce Your Ordinance".
Greco has reportedly warned that the Mons Venus and other clubs who don't abide by the new law risk putting "unwitting" customers at risk, according to the St. Petersburg Times, but Redner isn't exactly losing sleep over the threat. "Greco can't enforce his . . . ordinance and he knows it," Redner tells the Times. "If he could, he would."
And he's not the only one. Across the road, three signs outside the 2001 Odyssey club proclaim the lap dancing goes ever on, while three other clubs, the Times reports, have adopted a dancer-optional policy, according to Mons Venus attorney Luke Lirot.
The paper says there have been no arrests since the new ordinance passed during a marathon City Council meeting last week, while city officials tell the paper they're giving the clubs an unspecified grace period to comply. Undercover officers are reported watching the clubs and talking with city attorneys on a regular basis, the paper says.
City Attorney James Palermo tells the Times they haven't decided when to start enforcing the new law but they're not going to let Redner goad them into it, either. "He's not going to tell us when to do something or not do something," Palermo says. "When we're ready, we'll do it -- not because Joe Redner put something on a sign."
Greco says clubs who violate the ordinance put their customers at risk of arrest - dancers or customers, violators face a maximum $1,000 fine and six months in jail.
"Somewhere down the line . . . patrons who partake in the dance are also going to jail," Greco tells the Times. "It doesn't have to happen too many times before the word (to customers) gets out: You've got a problem."
The paper says eight clubs owned by Galardi South Enterprises are trying to comply and avoid customer arrests, while their attorney, Scott Boardman, and Lirot are drafting a lawsuit to challenge the ordinance and block enforcement.
But there's already an effect from the new ordinance, the Times says - business at clubs where the dancers are staying six feet back or wearing swimsuits or similar clothing for lap dances is off 60-80 percent. By contrast, business at Mons Venus is only off 10 percent, says Redner, who adds he'll bail out any dancers who get arrested and pay their legal fees.
The Times doesn't say, though, whether he would do likewise for any customers who should be arrested.
