TAMPA – Strippers, their co-workers and bosses may soon need a license to ply their trade in Hillsborough County, not unlike building contractors, cabbies or real estate agents.

They also would be subjected to a host of new rules if they want to keep that license and continue performing in or running an adult-oriented business, under a proposal expected to go before commissioners next month.

Those rules could make it harder for their bosses to attract customers, and are sure to draw legal challenges from the adult entertainment industry.

“They’ve spent millions and millions of tax dollars trying to put me out of business and I’m still here,” said Mons Venus strip club owner Joe Redner, who has won several legal battles since his first club opened in 1976. “That’s my job in life, pointing out when they make fools of themselves.”

Among the highlights of the proposal:

–No nudity or semi-nudity would be allowed in any place where alcohol is consumed. Currently, some strip clubs get around laws that ban the sale of alcohol in adult businesses by letting people bring their own and selling the mixers.

–No erotic performances would be allowed in any room smaller than 1,000 square feet. That would effectively ban VIP rooms, or private modeling rooms where lap dances are performed.

–Employees of strip clubs would be forbidden from touching their customers, even with their clothes on. Currently strippers are able to get around the so-called 6-foot rule by donning enough clothing to cover their private areas between dance performances.

–Owners of adult-oriented businesses and their employees – including contract employees – would lose their licenses if convicted of certain crimes, ranging from prostitution or other sex crimes to drug possession.

–All existing adult businesses would have to comply with the new licensing requirement as soon as their current licenses to sell alcohol expire. In other words, they would not be grandfathered in.

The proposal was crafted by Scott Bergthold, a Chattanooga, Tenn.-based attorney whose firm specializes in crafting and defending adult business regulations. Commissioners hired Bergthold for $10,000 to critique their adult-business laws and suggest ways to tighten them.

Bergthold concluded that the county’s ordinances are overly vague and broad in many instances, opening them to successful challenges from adult-business operators claiming their First Amendment rights are being infringed.

He said the trouble often arises when the government tries to use zoning and land-use regulations to isolate the industry. These rules can be so broad they allow wide interpretation by government officials, inviting court challenges when prospective businesses don’t get their way.

“Under these governing authorities, I conclude the Hillsborough County regulations are constitutionally defective and need to be replaced,” Bergthold wrote.

He proposes maintaining some zoning requirements, mainly the more mathematical or “robotic” rules that govern how close an adult business can be to a school or park. Then a second tier of rules should be added that govern conduct inside those businesses, with the intent of combating “harmful secondary effects” that are caused by the “combustible combination” of alcohol and nudity.

Courts have ruled the government has a legitimate interest in regulating the adult industry in a narrow fashion to address such things as increased crime.

“I think it’s a huge shift in how we approach adult businesses,” said County Attorney Renee Lee, whose office has been working with Bergthold. “This is a silver bullet approach vs. a buckshot approach.”

Strip club owners such as Redner deny their businesses cause increased crime or other problems that are the government’s concern. He said lawsuits by government that have asserted as much and succeeded weren’t met with effective opposition.

“In the face of evidence, which is overwhelming when we put up a fight, they don’t win,” Redner said.

Even if the new law passes, it would not affect adult businesses within the city of Tampa, where most of them exist, unless the city agrees to adopt the same rules. For now, that is not the plan.

City Attorney David Smith said Tampa government has spent years crafting the laws it has on the books so that they can withstand constitutional challenges. While they don’t ban adult businesses, they do govern where those businesses locate and some of the conduct within.

“Since we have ordinances that work and have been upheld, we don’t have as big a need to do something as the county does, apparently,” Smith said. “So we will probably spend our time on other things that need our attention right now.”

The discussion by the county is likely to rekindle proposals to put the ordinance to a straw-ballot referendum, to gauge voter approval. While the vote would have no binding effect, county officials say it may help encourage the city to reconsider its position.

“We’re hoping that if we did this straw ballot, they would maybe see why we’ve been so insistent on this issue,” said Hillsborough Commission Chairman Jim Norman.