St. Petersburg Times photo. \nTAMPA - City Hall was jammed with people telling the Tampa City Council how banning lap dancing would cripple the local economy and threaten livelihoods, but the council wasn't going to budge. A six-hour hearing wasn't enough to wear the council down; they voted unanimously to ban lap dancing at the city's strip clubs.
That doesn't exactly mean it's a closed issue for all time, though - it will take a second council vote and the mayor's signature for the ban to become the law of the city. But if it does get that far, violators would face maximum penalties of $1,000 fines and six months in jail, with more than three violations within 30 days meaning the city could declare the business a public nuisance and move to shut it down, says the St. Petersburg Times.
Dancers and their families, strip club owners, and numerous hired guns took aim at the proposal to keep exotic dancers six feet from customers and other entertainers but to no avail. Arguments that the rule would cripple if not destroy a multimillion dollar local industry gained no ground. Not even a quadriplegic who lives with his exotic-dancer sister, saying her income was keeping him out of a nursing home, made a difference.
The Times says lap dancing is the main income source for the dancers, with customers paying $20 to have a nude dancer rub against their bodies to the rhythm of music. Dancers can make $50,000 or more a year by lap dancing, the paper says. And the Times says that during the six hour hearing only one of several dozen speakers supported the proposed ban.
For the second council vote, however, the body isn't taking chances - they'll have that at the Tampa Convention Center, expecting another large turnout.
Assistant City Attorney Rick Fee says the ban was prompted by an influx of adult businesses throughout the decade, the Times says, with "each seemingly trying to outdo the other in outrageous behavior." There had been allegations of prostitution and lewd acts in strip clubs, lingerie modeling shops, and body-scrub businesses, according to Fee.
"This is heavy-duty sexual contact in adult uses (in Tampa) that police have found to be a problem," Fee told the hearing. "Exotic message (in dance) can be just as clearly expressed from 6 feet as from right in their laps."
But Mons Venus owner Joe Redner's attorney, Luke Lirot, told the hearing police have enough power to attack prostitution and other crimes in the adult business without punishing the rest. "To put hundreds and hundreds of people out of business . . .seems a little bit of a reach," he said.
The council says the economic impact would only be felt if the ordinance closed all clubs.
