The Los Angeles City Council voted to repeal the six-foot-rule ordinance that they had passed in September by a vote of ten-to-one today. A compromise bill that was developed in negotiations that were still taking place as late as this morning, was introduced and unanimously passed.
"They submitted a new draft ordinance which went to first reading and passed 11-0, and the only reason that it now is going to a second reading is that that did not have a sufficient number of people there to dispense with the second reading," explained attorney John Weston, who represents several local dance clubs. "Under their rules, they need a unanimous vote of at least 12 people to avoid a second reading, and by the time they got to our matter today, they'd lost a number of council people, so it's set for Dec. 2 for the second reading of the ordinance."
During this morning's discussion, city council members indicated that clubs have agreed to remove VIP rooms, though almost all the other onerous provisions of the original ordinance have been done away with in the revised bill.
“This was about the only thing that we could do without that we could still do business with,” said Déjà Vu marketing director Troy Medore, who had not sat on the committee working on the compromise.
"The new ordinance is the old ordinance with certain things taken out," Weston advised. "The six-foot rule is out. The no-tipping rule is out. The no-touch rule is out. The rule that says all dancing must be on a platform or stage is out. The rule that says all dancers must be separated by a 30-inch railing from patrons is out. The rule that says there must be a separate entrance for dancers and patrons is out. And the lighting level changed. It went from two foot-candles to 1.5 except when people are dancing, and then it's 1.0 foot-candles. And there are a number of technical changes concerning the revocation, suspension and denial [of licenses] situation of a procedural nature."
As for the VIP rooms, while they're not history, they have been severely limited.
"The original ordinance said that everything had to be visible from the front door," Weston said. "In other words, you stepped in and you had to be able to see everything, so an L-shaped building or any interesting architectural designs were gone. Under the current ordinance, there can't be any closed doors or rooms, but it is satisfactory, so long as every place is at least visible from a common area. The new ordinance also says no curtains or other obscuring things [on doorways or windows to private rooms]."
The council expressed outrage that they had been outmaneuvered, and a few members of the council expressed disbelief that there had been 100,000 people that signed a petition forcing a referendum, but most endorsed the compromise, citing the cost and the possibility that they would lose if they took the issue to the ballot.
"A number of the [council]people were very candid," Weston recounted. "They said, 'We adopted this. We were absolutely surprised that they were able to get 106,000 votes, and democracy talks, and it's obvious that a lot of people in the city may feel differently about this, and quite frankly, right now, we don't want to spend $3 million to put it on the ballot and to have a campaign.' Some of them said that, 'These adult business are obviously ready to spend $3 or $4 million for a PR campaign, and we're not. We want to put money into police safety and we're now facing a situation where we're going to have hundreds of people laid off from city government, we're having trouble being able to fund police services, and although we understand that this may be an important issue, right now we're having to make the decision that it's not as important as other things, and that this ordinance that we have, the new one, is a good starting point; it will give police added powers,' etc., etc., etc."
Six months from now the city council will revisit the ordinance and see if it has been effective in controlling what the council described as rampant prostitution and drug abuse. At that time they will consider placing the original ordinance on the ballot.
Comments from Councilman Ed Reyes were typical of the debate on the matter. “We’re not going to give up, this is not the last step, this is not the last front,” Reyes said. “We’re going to keep fighting what is happening to our communities with an industry that choose to take advantage of women, chooses to create environment that enhances vices, and chooses to focus in areas that our most in need when it comes to how we improve our quality of life.”
Alex Padilla, president of the city council, pressed to council to take the matter to the ballot, urging the council to take the vote to the ballot. Padilla even went so far as to suggest that the signature gatherers on the referendum drive were lying about the ordinance in order to get signatures.
“This is a quality of life issue for the communities that have to deal with the unscrupulous vendors in this arena,” Padilla said. “And not every single one of them, some of them just don’t know how to be good business people and not allow or encourage or care about what spills over into the community.”
Councilman Cardenas, the lone dissenter in the vote to rescind the original ordinance, expressed similar views.
"He said he felt that the original ordinance was a good one," Weston said, "and that the City Council should have the courage of its convictions and let it go to the ballot, not withstanding the fact that that would mean that there was an interregnum [on enforcement] for 16 months. He said, 'I believe that the people will vote our way.'"
Weston's own view was that it was simply a case of the people making their voices heard.
"To some extent, I was very proud of the way the city functioned," Weston analyzed. "This city is 3.8 million people, the second largest city in America. It revealed itself to be responsive to the democratic processes in that an ordinance that would have had an enormous impact on diversity and matters of choice and a significant amount of employment and a staple of the entertainment menu in America, and which would have had enormous impact and influence throughout the country because of the popularity and notoriety and trend-setting nature of Los Angeles, in response to an unprecedented and huge citizen opposition as demonstrated in the referendum petition, changed its mind and adopted a very different and modified ordinance. Any time government is confronted with the will of the people and reacts appropriately, that's a terrific thing. I'm very happy and proud to have been able to play a role in it. I'm also enormously proud of the work that we were able to do with our lobbyist Steve Afriat and the group of clubs that were part of all this, and the committee that worked so hard to make this happen."
The cost to the city to take this issue to ballot would have been $3 million dollars, a steep price tag for a city that is already planning layoffs. Another issue was that seven of the council members will be campaigning at that time, a time when voters might think there are more pressing issues than closing down strip clubs.
The council will reopen the issue on December 2.
