0 vote to ban lap dancing.
Ross: "The paper reported that there was about 2500 people there last night. About two-thirds were on our side; about a third were from the Christian community. They only showed up because the mayor of Tampa played this videotape Monday that was evidence in a trial and invited everyone to come and watch it.
"The newspapers didn't get the whole story because they had to go to press, obviously. What happened was, there was an injunction at the start of the hearing [regarding showing of the tape]; but as the hearing came through, another judge overturned the injunction. So they had the ability to show the tape, but they didn't show it because they had already gone past that portion of their presentation. So what they did was they had one of the city attorneys describe the tape for 15 minutes in vivid detail. Instead of watching the 'movie' they wound up having the story read to them. It incited everybody.
"The city council wound up voting on this thing about 1:50 am. It was a 13-hour meeting. Everybody spoke. From our standpoint, we did everything right. Lou Sirkin was here and put on a presentation. Luke Lirot put on a presentastion. I put on a presentation. We did everything we needed to do. The problem is the city council had already made their decision beforehand.
"Here are some things that weren't in the paper. At about 10 pm the mayor signed the ordinance. It wasn't voted on till two o'clock. Apparently they had the buses and cops ready to go out to the clubs, but they had to wait. Most of the clubs are closing down about two, so they decided not to go in and bust all the clubs.
"Today all the clubs are expecting to get busted. Some of them are going ti turn around and challenge the ordinance, like Joe Redner. Some of them like Deja Vu are going to try and comply the best they can with the law. Myself, one of the things we did yesterday was raise about $55,000 to put on a ballot referendum. I'm waiting for one of the attorneys to come pick me up. We're going to go through the court process today.
"We turned in about 15,000 signatures opposed to this ordinance. Nobody can answer what the city petitions process is. Then I read them what their law says and according to their law, I complied. So we're going to see the voter registration person and wind up in court to get those signatures validated so we can put this on the ballot. If that happens, then the whole ordinance is going to be enjoined.
"I hired an attorney and we're also working on lawsuits."
[Additional comments and news about the council meeting will be featured in today's update.]
