Two years ago, the Los Angeles City Council adopted a controversial lap dance ban after many hours of public hearings, heated debates and protests from angry strip club owners and attorneys representing the strip club industry.
Council members did not technically ban the dances. Instead they created a rule that patrons could not get closer than six feet to the dancers.
“We put together a very powerful coalition of three groups of people – City of Los Angeles gentlemen’s clubs, gentlemen’s clubs from around the area (but, not from the city of Los Angeles), and several adult arcade companies from within the city of Los Angeles,” said attorney John Weston of West Los Angeles law firm Weston, Garrou and DeWitt. Weston represents nearly 20 adult cabaret operators.
“We raised an enormous amount of money and we hired a very distinguished professional signature gatherer and we qualified, by the petition process, a referendum to require the city to either repeal the ordinance that it adopted or to put the ordinance before the citizens in an election,” Weston told AVN.com.
Faced with a choice of putting the issue to a vote, the L.A. City Council opted to repeal a rule requiring patrons to keep their distance from dancers.
What remained on the books was a watered-down version of the original that prohibited VIP rooms and required state-licensed security guards to be on duty at all times, but allowed lap dancing.
“Every client of mine complied fully with any VIP requirements. VIP rooms basically disappeared from Los Angeles, Weston said.
Then, all of a sudden, last summer L.A. City Councilman Tony Cardenas revived the issue of banning lap dances.
This after a federal appeals court upheld a “no-touch” ordinance in La Habra. The court said the ordinance, which required dancers to remain at least two feet away from patrons during lap dances, and prohibited physical contact between dancers and patrons in adult cabarets, did not violate constitutionally protected freedom of speech and expression.
A statement from Cardenas’ office said his latest proposal would be the “strictest strip-club regulation in the country.”
The L.A. city ordinance would keep dancers and patrons six feet apart, prohibit direct tipping, and restrict performances to raised stages surrounded by railings at least 2 1/2 feet high.
“The strip club industry was never consulted about the Cardenas proposal. I was never notified. No one ever told us anything,” Weston said.
“Nobody told us that the proposal was on the council’s agenda."
The proposal was first sent to the Los Angeles Police Commission.
Before unanimously approving the measure, the police commissioners said they thought the ordinance would do a good job of resolving concerns that ultimately scaled back a similar city effort two years ago.
“I think this is narrowly crafted and very clear cut,” John Mack, president of the commission, said in a report in the L.A. Daily News. “It is not overreaching.”
LAPD Detective Ben Jones told police commissioners that the ordinance is needed because some adult dance halls are hotbeds of prostitution and other crimes.
“If there is prostitution, arrest those involved," Weston said. "This is a city of three-and-a-half million people; surely you can have room for diversity in the laws."
The police commission approved the lap dance measure unanimously.
“You are not regulating dance, you are regulating physical contact,” Assistant City Attorney Michael Klekner told the Daily News. He added that is conduct that is not protected by the Constitution.
The measure is now headed to the City Council’s Public Safety Committee for consideration. The committee has not yet scheduled a meeting.
Weston concluded, “We are going to continue to lobby and politic vigorously against this and we are going to be saying that this is unneeded. The council is well aware that if it adopted this measure there will be a referendum again. We are organized. There will be a referendum."
He added, “Los Angeles is facing many, many serious problems like traffic, major crime, education and energy. It is a shame that the city council’s time and effort needs to be spent on this.”
