repeated mantra at Thursday's Tampa city council meeting which pushed through an ordinance to ban lap dancing. In the wake of the meeting, lobbyist Mike Ross said lawsuits are a-comin', particularly some from those "diseased whores" the city council kept addressing. Ross also says City Council Chairman Charlie Miranda even admitted to the crowd that he made a mistake backing the ordinance but had to vote for it anyway.
Ross: "I'm also working on lawsuits involving any consumers who might be arrested because of the ordinance. We're going to foot their bill. I think this is opening up a whole new area of law for the adult entertainment industry. 1) we're using a policital process to fight back; 2) we're not only relying on the entertainers or the owners to sue, but we're also going to start bringing suits on behalf of the consumers.
"This is the concept. Entertainers don't have the right to sue and ask for tips. Owners don't have a right to sue and say this is or isn't constitutional. But consumers definitely have some kind of recourse. It is constitutional for them and they have the right to give tips and see this kind of stuff. We're going to try and make some cases out of that. Any consumers that are arrested, we'll foot the bill. We have a couple of attorneys who've said they're interested in this area of law and are willing to do this pro bono.
"At the hearing around 12 am, most of the Christian Coalition was gone. We still had about 75 people who were testifying. Everybody got to speak. Everybody was professional. We did a lot of talking and negotiating. When I got up to do my presentation, I said we did this thing with the petitions. We should put this on the ballot. Like 1 in 4 people who got up to speak said this belongs on the ballot. We believe this belongs on the ballot. All the club owners are supporting this. I was really amazed that some of the club owners at the meeting were walking up and literally handing me checks. I had $50,000 sitting in my hands. All the club owners said, whatever you want Mike. Please stay here. One of them offered to give me a condo to stay here for a couple of months to run this thing. I can't do that because I live in another place, obviously.
"We registered with the city council, so we're now a registered lobby in Tampa. But there's a question as to whether we have to be registered in Talahasee. That's part of the problem. The paragraph dealing with the referendum in Tampa's law is very confusing. It's designed to dissuade people from doing this. When you read most referendum law throughout the country, they're designed to encourage this process. The way we read it is, if it's not written in Tampa law, then the Florida state law is good. If that's the case, when we turn around and get this thing qualified, then the ordinance is enjoined and they can't do anything till after we go through the process. I have a petition signing company that will start hitting the streets next week depending what happens with the court situation.
"It worked out really good. The best thing about this was that the model we used to put this all together is what we're going to use around the country. I'm amazed how professional we acted. The dancers were smart, pretty and intelligent. Nobody swore. You know who did the swearing? The consumers.
"We had about 350 consumers show up. We went out of our way to get consumers to this thing. We bussed people in. There were caravans. There was a rally from city hall to the convention center which is like 15 blocks and we actually turned people out. I couldn't believe that at 1 in the afternoon this packed two convention center rooms. They had about 75 full uniform police officers there. They were expecting clashes between the two groups. They had metal detectors set up and the whole works. There were no problems. There were some catcalls but there were no incidents. The worse thing that happened is that we couldn't get food sent in at 10 pm.
"Even though we lost, we can put a good spin on it by saying it was a very positive thing. One of the owners, Dennis Israel from the Pink Pony, said one of the good things that came out of this, is this. We were able to sit in the same room with our brothers and we've devised a plan. 'If you guys [Tampa city council] don't watch out, you're going to be sued.'
"Lou Sirkin's got three lawsuits. Luke Lirot has at least two. I've got one, and I think I've got at least two others based on consumers. The city has opened themselves up. The concept they've opened themselves up on is that dancers are diseased whores. They continually said that throughout the whole night, but they couldn't prove it. What I find particularly funny is that women who dance and show their genitals take extra precautions to make sure they're clean and fresh.
"It also came out in the meeting that Tampa's mayor used to bring clients into one of the clubs, and the second guy on the council who was supporting this, Sean Harrison, was a regular visitor to The Tango which is the original strip club in town. One of the dancers stood up and said, 'I think that you're [Harrision] an insult to us. I've seen you, and I've given you a lap dance a half dozen times until you started to run for office and now all of a sudden, you're a good, Christian right wing guy.'
'You don't read about this stuff in the newspapers. In fact one of the things that the chairman, Charlie Miranda said...
G. Ross: "Did somebody read him his rights?"
Mike Ross: "I was thinking that myself. No, he was reading everybody their rights and he was apologizing at the end. He said, 'I know this is a very controversial issue, and I want to thank the adult community for coming out, and being so professional. I think I made a mistake. I didn't go in and research the issues. I thought that you were a lot lower class than you really were.'
"I'm surprised he admitted it. Then he turned around and voted for it. That's all the problems with this issue. The strategy that we've used when we've gone into a city is low key, keep the press out of it, do everything behind closed doors. Don't make a big deal out of it. But when Joe Redner [owner of Mons Venus] got a hold of it he turned around and nailed these guys to the max. From what I understand all the clubs Thursday night did a maximum amount of business. People were walking in and saying I want to get my lap dancers before city council bans it."
