Mike Ross reports: "After speaking to experts over the last couple of weeks regarding Paps and its impact, it appears that the industry will unfortunately become gripped in another round of long and expensive legal battles, and will do so fighting local government claims that we create "negative secondary effects."
In the past, the weapon that's been used against us most, is the negative secondary effect report, while our main weapon has been the law suit. For the last several months (because there are so many political fronts), we've been urging the country to take a "team wide" approach - organize, work together, be proactive and fight back by lobbying against the ordinance/proposal before it's enacted and a court fight is necessary.
Apparently, experts (kind of) agree that the ruling opens up another avenue to work together - creating a local "positive report." With that in mind, we thought we would explore how to speed up the creation process up,while ensuring the report is cost & politically effective.
This is a complicated subject and project, so everything I am saying is not gospel. We believe that if you want to produce an effective report, use common legal strategy and consumer purchasing guidelines to help guide your purchase, create the report and then evaluate what you have purchased.
Before I go any further, we can't afford to have you create a willy-nilly report. Rather, listen, evaluate and refute what your city is saying about you: That you cause a variety of "code section violations" ranging from Sexual Battery to Prostitution. Your business also lowers property values.
To refute their charges, the document must have at least two critical parts. Part one debunks the crime link myths, while the second refutes the concept of us negatively impacting property values.
Since time is often of the essence, we suggest that you, your attorney (or us on your behalf), immediately contact local law enforcement officials and using the Freedom of Information Act, request your businesses specific crime statistics. This information is usually available for a small fee, and takes about 5 or 6 weeks to acquire and another 4 or 5 to collate. I want to stress, that at this point, I believe that is what the experts will do.
Specifically, the material must relate to questions, concerns and problems that the local government is accusing you of, so when you request information, make sure you request that the provide you with exact information about "so called criminal activity" at your location, including the number of prostitution or sexual assaults, as well as burglaries and drugs.
Once the "list" is established, collect all of the information for all of the cabarets in your community. Then, compare your stats with 25 or 30 other "high profile" community businesses. Comparison businesses should include: 1 or 2 high schools, a shopping center, the bus station, the top 2 or 3 largest gay clubs, a half a dozen alcohol facilities and any business you think is high profile.
What we are trying to show is this, "that crime happens in a city, not just in our clubs, and to blame us by passing restrictive zoning is a fallacy."
Upon receiving the documents, hire a statistics professional to help you collate them, or send them to us for collation and use in our report.
Finally, there is a concern about whom to use as an "official" to certify the created stats. Personally, I have noticed in hearings, that elected officials rarely believe our lawyers or "experts," (courts do) and as such, they side with city staff, forcing us into court. With that in mind, it's our suggestion that we no longer rely soly on "experts" but rather, let the city's own facts & figures do the talking - turn their own statistics against themselves!
By using this approach, we hope two things happen, first, you won't get into a "qualifications fight" (which pro is more qualified) and second you'll be able to hold your quality legal arguments (and expenses) for court.
