Last fall, VoyeurDorm had Tampa City officials wondering how to handle them, finally settling for ruling its house doing business unlawfully in a residential area. This winter, Pinellas Park is pondering what to make of DudeDorm, whose operators say they won't let the city pressure them out of the house they use here for their live online site.
Residents and the owners of DudeDorm tell the St. Peterburg Times they've heard no complaints from neighbours and won't leave without a fight, but the city of Pinellas Park says it's probing whether - like VoyeurDorm in Tampa - DudeDorm is operating in a residential area illegally and without a business license.
Police learned only days ago that DudeDorm was even operating, the paper says. Pinellas Park Mayor Bill Mischler was reportedly "floored" when a Times reporter told him about DudeDorm - especially since there is no nude bar, adult bookstore, or peep show anywhere in the city.
Burce Hammil, vice president of DudeDorm owner Entertainment Network, says critics are missing the point of the online business: there is occasional nudity, he tells the paper, but customers pay to watch the real lives of six University of South Students, who are paid between $500 and $600 a week in salary plus their school expenses, including tuition.
Hammil compares what happens in DudeDorm to a professional's home business. "We don't feel we should change our way of living because someone has a moral problem with it," he tells the Times. "We'll stay and fight. We're not going to move to some warehouse."
EN lost a battle with Tampa over VoyeurDorm last year, with the college-age women running smack into a city council ruling upholding a zoning decision that VoyeurDorm operated an adult business illegally in a residential area, the paper says. EN sued in federal court, and Tampa hasn't tried to enforce the zoning decision while that case is pending, the Times says.
DudeDorm is set up in the condo of Hammil's partner David Mashlack, with twelve video cameras capturing the lives of six young men - two of whom are gay - for customers paying $24.95 per month. The site so far has 4,600 customers, the Times says, with each student spending four hours a day on a computer chatting with customers plus the same amount of time, or thereabout, in on-camera activities from weight training to house cleaning.
Though the paper says neighbors are mostly undisturbed and cite no trouble coming from the DudeDorm condo, Mischler and other neighbors tell the paper DudeDorm's biggest crisis might hit when the condo owners association learns of what goes on.
