Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Detroit strip clubs face booze ban
Attorney says Detroit’s threat to end liquor sales if dancers don’t cover up is all-out war

Detroit –Detroit may soon deliver an ultimatum to its strip clubs: Cover up or no booze.

The City Council on Wednesday is set to weigh a broad crackdown that would ban alcohol at clubs with topless dancing. The new rules also would stop lap dancing, close VIP rooms and force dancers to wear opaque pasties — even at dry clubs.

The rules are certain to reignite debate over the city’s 31 topless bars, and owners are vowing a fight.

“The city of Detroit has now decided they want an all-out war,” said Michael Donaldson, an attorney for All Stars and the Penthouse Club. “They cannot win. They are being totally stupid.”

But city staffers point to state and national court cases that support the legality of an alcohol ban. Richard Mack, an attorney and member of Perfecting Church, said the city must reject its status as Michigan’s strip club capital and home to 31 of the state’s 81 topless bars.

“Our goal is to do all we can within the law to root them out,” Mack said. “We don’t want the city of Detroit to be the dumping ground for lascivious behavior.”

The crackdown stems from a court battle in which a federal judge in 2007 struck down Detroit’s regulations on where clubs could open and ordered them rewritten. City staffers have recast the laws, but they have added tougher restrictions elsewhere — such as the alcohol ban. Pastors and community leaders have pushed for the changes and persuaded the council to get advice from Scott Bergthold, a Tennessee attorney who has worked nationwide to shut clubs down.

Here are some of the proposed changes:

• Alcohol can’t be served at any existing or new topless clubs. Once the City Council passes the change, existing clubs would have until their license expires, which is renewed every year, or the anniversary of the date the law was passed, to comply. A Michigan Liquor Control Commission official said Monday it’s up to the city to set those restrictions on the liquor licenses.

• Dancers would have to be 6 feet from patrons and on a stage at all times. A stage must be at least 18 inches off the floor in a room of at least 600 feet. That requirement likely would stop clubs from letting customers interact with dancers in smaller rooms, often called VIP areas.

• Dancers would also have to wear pasties..

Several council members did not return calls Monday on whether they would support the proposals. And Mayor Dave Bing’s staff said he hasn’t seen the proposals.

Rob Katzman, owner of the Toy Chest Bar and Grille, said the potential changes would put nearly all of the clubs out of business.

“You could not operate,” said Katzman, who argued that most clubs cause no problems. “You just wonder what the motivation is.”

But Mack argued the clubs lower property values and increase crime.

“Whenever they want to do their dirt, they come into the city and then return to their white picket-fenced suburban communities,” Mack said. “We want the same white picket-fenced communities.”

U.S. District Judge Julian Cook ordered the city to rewrite its rules, finding they gave city officials too much power to deny new clubs and didn’t address how long they had to act on applications. Under the old rules, clubs had to meet 15 broad criteria — including claims they wouldn’t reduce nearby property values — before the city signed on.

Cook ordered the city to revise its rules “forthwith.”

But the city has repeatedly delayed doing so. All the while, the council and mayor’s office have frozen transfers of liquor licenses that would allow clubs to open. The city is facing at least five recent federal lawsuits over its laws governing adult businesses.