No Drinking, No Touching, No Business

No Drinking, No Touching, No Business

By Sean Roth

Real Estate Editor

As the region's winter residents fly north for the summer, another regular event is taking place in Manatee County's commission chambers. As if by clockwork, the focus of the seven-member commission shifted from the budget or development regulations to the curtailing of legal adult businesses.

After a five-year legal battle over the county's public-nudity ordinance, the newly crafted ordinance is more stringent, particularly for adult cabarets. Ordinance 05-21 is based around a more controlled licensing system for all sexually oriented businesses (SOBs). Licenses would be required for both business owners and employees.

In exchange for dropping the businesses from the purview of the public-nudity ordinance and letting dancers appear in pasties and G-strings, the county would eliminate the sale of alcohol, separate dancers and customers by at least 6 feet and regulate the building size and interior layout of the clubs.

"Simply put, the new ordinance would put my clients out of business," says Luke Lirot, a Tampa attorney who frequently represents adult businesses fighting government interference. Lirot, who represents all three Manatee County strip clubs - The Paper Moon, Cleopatra's and the Peek-A-Boo Lounge - says that given the triple hit, the clubs would cease being "economically viable in their present business format."

"In particular, the physical construction requirements would limit the number of performers," Lirot says. "With fewer entertainers you aren't going to attract as many patrons. Ultimately, it would it make it simply impossible for these businesses to maintain their bottom line. Frankly, it's unconstitutional."

Chief Assistant Manatee County Attorney Jim Minix strongly disagrees with Lirot.

"The Supreme Court recognizes this (industry) as part of the First Amendment, so it's granted greater protection than businesses that do not have those protections," Minix says. "We have to show that as a category, sexually oriented businesses have adverse secondary effects. I believe we have done that with the proposed ordinance."

Studies from other regions and private-investigator affidavits form the basis for the county's ordinance. Those studies argue that as a class, adult businesses have a negative impact on health, crime and/or surrounding property values.

Taking the side of the county was Richard McCleary, a Ph.D. with the School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine, who outlined what he said was evidence showing that SOBs are a crime hazard. One of the main points of McCleary's argument was the assertion that SOBs attract easy crime targets because of the transitory nature of the patrons, propensity to carry cash and need for anonymity.

Opponents to the ordinance put forth two main experts: Dr. Terry Danner, chair of the Department of Criminology at St. Leo University in Saint Leo, and Randy Fisher, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychology at the University of Central Florida, Orlando. They also presented a November 2004 market study on local real estate by Richard Schauseil, a Florida real estate agent.

Danner's work focused on the actual crime-related effect of two local long-time strip clubs. According to Danner's analysis of service calls, the adult businesses didn't have more police problems than other establishments that serve alcohol (see Police Service Calls). In two separate reports, Fisher refuted the scientific and analytical foundation of the studies cited by McCleary and McCleary's own report.

Schauseil's study compared the areas surrounding the two established strip clubs to what he said was a comparable commercial area. His conclusion: There was no evidence of blight, urban or economic decay, and the rates of appreciation (near the erotic-dance clubs) are superior to other selected comparable commercial areas that do not have an adult business.

At the April 5 Manatee commission meeting, the experts and attorneys clashed. It appears that neither side's data changed minds.

Commissioners chose not to perform a study on the potential secondary effects of SOBs. Minix says recent federal case law allows the county to save the expense and time of researching a local study if other studies reasonably show that as a class SOBs pose secondary effects.

"This is what government does all the time," Minix says. "Let's say as an example you run a bar where no one ever gets drunk. Your staff never allows anyone to be served more than one beer. Does that mean government can't regulate the alcohol strictly because it isn't a problem at one location? Absolutely not. There are several studies that show there are problems associated with businesses that serve alcohol so government can regulate it. It's legal, and it makes logical sense."

Lirot, however, says the county won't perform a local study out of concern problems wouldn't surface; the county would be bound by its results and couldn't regulate the industry.

"They are trying to rely on a minimal set of studies that support their position," Lirot says. "They use outdated material that has already been proven to be bogus to support their case. They rely on stereotypes. The adult entertainment industry has changed significantly over the years and yet they continue to rely on old data. This is like citing just a few individual cases and then saying that the Irish are prone to fight. They say this is to stop of the spread of disease. There is absolutely no shred of evidence.

"I had a study done recently ... that was based on published articles on sexual abuse committed against children. There were about 1,000 articles relating to sexual abuse (allegedly) committed by members of the clergy, but there was not one by a person associated with an adult business. So we asked the commission why is there no 6-foot rule between parishioners and priests? Simply because it doesn't advance government's puritanical interests."

Comments by at least one county commissioner tend to back up Lirot's assertion that local government's interest is more ideologically based. County Commissioner Donna Hayes told GCBR the businesses don't belong in Manatee.

"This is a quiet peaceful community," Hayes says. "These businesses don't fit in with the atmosphere and ambiance of Manatee County. We hear from a lot of constituents that this is not the type of establishments they want near churches or residences. I would imagine this ordinance would pass; I know I support it. The decisions we make today will affect Manatee County for decades."

Asked about the potential effect of the ordinance on the businesses, Hayes says it just adds reasonable limits.

"Our goal is never to put anybody out of business," she says. "I don't think it will severely curtail their revenue stream. We just feel that eliminating the liquor and keeping patrons away from dancers is obviously going to ... reduce the number of undesirable people and reduce crime."

Hayes was not convinced by data supplied by opponents of the ordinance, particularly because the calls for police service studies didn't take into account attendance figures.

Notably silent on the discussion is the Manatee County Sheriff's Office. According to Dave Bristow, the office's public information officer, the sheriff is taking no position.

"Obviously we will enforce whatever ordinance is on the books," Bristow says. "To be honest we don't get a ton of calls from those establishments. We get more calls about the nightclub down the street (Club Heat). Historically we get quite a bit more from them."

Bristow was unsure if that was due to the additional security provided by the adult business owners.

Lirot expects Manatee commissioners to approve the new ordinance on April 19. He has already began preparing a lawsuit.

"I predict that if there is no hanky panky ... no (external) political element ... that we will win," Lirot says. "We had offered to settle with the county (over the public nudity ordinance case), but since they are doing this I am certainly not going to kiss goodbye thousands of dollars of legal fees in that case. I have been doing this since the late '80s and have found the exact same arguments time and time again, and we have won time and time again.

"Times have changed from when all the government had to do was mention the Renton case, and we would get our head handed to us. We can challenge these studies.... We have due process. This is an important industry from a First Amendment perspective, and these are a great commercial benefit."

Conversely, Minix believes the ordinance is legal and defensible.

"They are trying to say they are no worse than the bar down the street," Minix says. "That is fine, but we regulate the bar down the street."

Aged studies?

Richard McCleary, a presenter for the county cited 14 studies to show that sexually oriented businesses generate crime-related secondary effects. Of these only five were compiled in the last decade.

Los Angeles 1977

St. Paul 1977

Whittier 1978

Phoenix 1979

Minneapolis 1980

Indianapolis 1984

Austin 1986

Garden Grove 1991

Times Square 1994

Newport News 1996

Dallas 1997

Centralia 2003

Greenboro 2003

Toledo 2004