CLEARWATER – How much cheek is enough to show to people having a few drinks? Pinellas exotic dancers want to know.
Local adult entertainers are troubled by what they see as ambiguities in an ordinance that does not clearly state how much skin dancers can expose in clubs serving alcohol. On Tuesday they made their case before the Pinellas County Commission.
Dancers, club owners and a high-powered attorney told commissioners the local code bans “cleavage of the nates of the human buttocks” without specifying what that means.
Just walk down the beach, they say, and you can see just as much from women wearing thongs or “booty pants.”
Pinellas allows complete nudity in clubs that do not serve alcohol. But dancers at the county’s dozen or so topless clubs serving drinks must cover up. They usually wear what they say is the equivalent of a bathing suit. Yet, they say, they are often raided by sheriff’s deputies and fined $500 for showing too much.
They say that is unfair.
“At Hooters, when they bend over they are showing nates,” said Jill Lauderdale, a local dancer. “I don’t want to worry about bending over and going to jail because my smiley faces are showing.”
Lawyer Luke Lirot is no stranger to the adult dancing laws. He represented Joe Redner and many other Hillsborough clubs when Tampa began enforcing its lap dance ordinance in 2000.
In Pinellas, Lirot has been fighting the ambiguous “nate” issue. But he said that the court process has been slow. This week, he advised his clients to appeal to commissioners, asking them to clarify the code.
“We just got to a point where the constant enforcement put us in a position where we thought it would be a better option to come to the commission and get it correct,” Lirot said. “The request is that they be allowed to wear what is perhaps revealing, but is accepted as bathing attire without the risk of arrest.”
The item was not on the daily agenda, but was brought up during the public comment portion of the meeting.
Commission Chairwoman Susan Latvala said the county attorney sees the ordinance as appropriate. But Latvala wants commissioners to review it and see if they need a clearer definition.
“I don’t ever think it is good when there is ambiguity in the law,” Latvala said. “People with a fifth-grade education should be able to read it and understand it.”
Sheriff’s office spokesman Sgt. Tim Goodman said vice detectives think the law is fine.
“It’s enforceable the way it is,” he said.
Goodman said most investigations of dance clubs are prompted by complaints, sometimes from one club owner complaining about another. Arrests of dancers are made after undercover operations from time to time, though it’s not as if they are a daily occurrence, he said.
“We receive complaints and we respond to them,” he said.
The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office will spend more than $400,000 this budget year in the unit that investigates prostitution, gambling and areas including the enforcement of nudity ordinances, agency spokesman Mac McMullen has said.