MANATEE COUNTY — Strip club patrons can continue to sip beers and enjoy lap dances until a federal judge decides whether a new county ordinance is constitutional.
Three strip clubs filed a lawsuit this week challenging the new rules, and the county says it won’t enforce them until legal challenges are settled.
The new rules include a ban on alcohol and a requirement for six feet of separation between customers and strippers. The ordinance took effect May 2, and enforcement was set to begin this month.
For now, though, strip clubs Peek-A-Boo Lounge and Paper Moon in Bradenton and Cleopatra’s in Palmetto are exempt from the rules.
The reprieve allows both sides to be prepared with arguments and evidence without having to rush to ask a judge to block enforcement, said chief assistant county attorney Jim Minix. “Once the legal challenge is resolved, they will be under the ordinance,” he said.
Sexually oriented businesses not involved in the lawsuit must comply with the ordinance now.
The ordinance regulates lighting, floor layout and hours of operation, and requires employees get licenses to work at the businesses, which also includes adult bookstores and lingerie shops.
The county has identified about 10 establishments believed to be sexually oriented businesses, or SOBs, said Fred Loveland, the county’s director of community services.
Four of the businesses and about a dozen employees have applied for licenses so far.
The county began working on the new rules shortly after a federal appeals court found problems with an earlier ruling in favor of the county’s old adult entertainment code.
The court said the county defined nudity too broadly and didn’t supply evidence that adult businesses lead to an increase in crime, which the county used to justify minimum clothing requirements and searches of the clubs without warrants.
Besides the new lawsuit, filed Monday, strip club attorney Luke Lirot is trying to recover $150,000 for his clients in legal expenses from another case filed in 1999.
For that to happen, the case would likely have to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court on appeal, a prospect Lirot has admitted is unlikely.
In the new lawsuit, Lirot says the strip clubs have a “clear legal right to continue to operate their businesses under the status quo that has been problem free for years.”
He says the county’s new rules unfairly single out the adult businesses and interfere with the first amendment rights of performers.
Minix said the county has made a strong case for the new regulation. “We’re confident that our new ordinance will be upheld by the federal courts because we very carefully applied the federal case law to the language of the ordinance,” he said.