St. Petersburg- The people trying to open a bikini bar in Valrico say they have been singled out for unfair treatment by Hillsborough County government, and they’ve filed a lawsuit claiming their constitutional rights have been violated.

While that’s a matter for the courts to decide, the county’s treatment of the bar application has been unusual to say the least, even for a government whose hallmark is battling public prurience.

Consider: County planners initially approved the project in a routine staff-level review. But after intense scrutiny that was anything but routine, they rescinded their approval on grounds that the bar’s parking spaces were too small.

–When citizens opposed to the project filed a legal challenge to the initial approval, commissioners voted not to have county lawyers defend the employee who okayed it.

–Instead, commissioners hired a consultant for $124 an hour to debunk assertions made by owners of the bikini bar.

–Two assistant county attorneys who worked closely in reviewing the project at the outset abruptly left the county afterward. One was forced out at least in part for his handling of the bikini bar. The other quit the day after she was publicly humiliated by Commissioner Ronda Storms [pictured], the bar’s leading foe on the board.

County Administrator Pat Bean says all this attention is a little unusual, but what’s really atypical is the community outcry over the prospect of a bikini bar .

Nearly 800 people showed up for a May community meeting at a church organized by opponents of the project, which may be unprecedented, Bean said. The county is simply being responsive to citizens by ensuring the bar owners follow the rules.

“There was a significant amount of concern from residents in the area and when you have that you tend to spend more time than you would typically on a zoning issue,” Bean said. “There was an awful lot of community concern expressed about this project.”

Gemini Property Ventures is the group trying to open the bikini bar in an old tavern at 1602 E Brandon Blvd. The group’s attorney, Luke Lirot, said public tastes should not determine whether a person can open a legal business.

In a lawsuit filed this month, Lirot claims the county has subjected the bar to demands made of no other prospective business. In doing so, he says, the county has denied his clients’ constitutional rights to free speech and equal treatment.

“The First Amendment has never been a popularity contest,” Lirot said. “It was designed to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority.”

One thing is for sure: The bikini bar has been a popular topic inside County Center.

Plans for a bikini bar in Valrico came to public attention earlier this year when someone overheard a conversation in a bank, said east-county activist Terry Kemple. Someone was talking about plans to win approval to open a bar featuring women in bikinis, and the person who overheard it called Bell Shoals Baptist Church, where Kemple is a member.

Soon, Kemple was helping organize the May 17 community rally at Grace Bible Church near the proposed bar. Among those at the rally were three commissioners, including Storms, and several other top county officials. Storms and Kemple have been frequent allies against adult-oriented businesses.

Storms was already on the case. As early as March, her aide, Audi Canney, was firing off e-mails to county workers, asking about everything from sewer hookup requirements to landscaping.

In one prophetic March message, Canney noted the size of the parking lot outside the bar.

“The way I see it is maybe 6-8 spots fronting SR 60 and maybe 5-8 in the back – hardly any room to turn around,” Canney wrote. “I cannot see how the parking would be approved – please advise.”

A May e-mail included in the Genesis lawsuit highlights Canney directing the head of the county’s Environmental Protection Commission to see if the bar’s septic system is compromised.

In the months that followed, county workers, their supervisors and attorneys, had numerous meetings and conversations about the project. Records show discussions involving Storms, Bean and her top assistants, County Attorney Renee Lee, department directors and other staff members. Three lawyers in the County Attorney’s Office have logged more than 150 hours in meetings, phone calls and analysis since May. They include Ray Allen, who oversaw land-use matters in the County Attorney’s Office until his departure in September, and assistant County Attorney Rebecca Kert, who quit shortly afterward.

Gemini Property Ventures was seeking approval as a so-called non-conforming use, an application process typically measured in weeks.

There has been a bar on the property since at least the 1960s. If Gemini opened essentially the same type of business – a bar – it didn’t have to comply with newer, stricter development rules.

County workers pored over every aspect of the plan. Of particular interest: Did Gemini spend more than $25,000 on renovations? That would trigger additional, tougher development rules.

Gemini claims it falls below the threshold, and Lirot said his clients repeatedly have shown the county receipts for the work that verify this.

Applications are usually approved or rejected by a top manager in the county Planning and Growth Management Department. In this case, that was zoning administrator Paula Harvey.

Commissioners aren’t supposed to have a say-so.

In the lawsuit, Lirot claims his clients faced regular inspections from three county employees at a time. Genesis principals were summoned to County Center to meet with top officials and explain themselves. No question was too small.

“You have people at the highest level of county government asking about septic tanks,” he said. “Not to be flip, but none of this passes the smell test.”

The suit claims the effort was directed by Storms, and that violated the County Charter, which bars commissioners from interfering in day-to-day operations. The charter aims to prevent political forces from improperly interfering with sound government decisions. Commissioners are supposed to set broad public policy direction.

Kemple, a board member of the group Community Action Summit, which opposes the bar, said the county is treating this case as it does others that attract great public attention.

In fact, Kemple said the county’s initial response was not vigorous enough, so his group kept urging action through e-mails and phone calls.

“The rules are there for a purpose,” he said. “If people don’t abide by their rules, that’s their problem.”

Bruce McClendon, the county’s director of planning and growth management, said Storms has not directed any of his department’s work. Nor has public pressure influenced any decisions.

He said Gemini principal Jamie Rand brought the magnifying glass on the project by submitting false or misleading information about it. Rand regularly shopped specific aspects of the proposal to different planners when he didn’t like the answers he was hearing, McClendon said.

“At no point are we aware that we were asking him to do anything we felt he couldn’t comply with,” McClendon said. “Our biggest challenge from Day 1 has been his unwillingness to comply with the regulations that would be expected of anyone that’s developing in that area.”

Lirot said his client has complied with all the county’s demands.

And that’s what Harvey, the zoning administrator, finally concluded in mid September. She granted permission for the bikini bar, as long as it met remaining technical requirements.

Storms hit the roof. At a Sept. 22 board meeting, she castigated Harvey’s decision without naming her, saying it went against the conclusions of other staff members.

Kemple’s group was already appealing the approval to a hearing officer. Storms feared that by legally defending its own staff decision, the county would be, in effect, defending the right for a “sexually oriented business” to open.

So she asked commissioners to “stand down” – to provide no attorney to argue for Harvey’s decision before the hearing officer. The commissioners unanimously agreed.

Then she pushed to hire a consultant to analyze the value of renovations at the bikini bar to see if they cost more than the $25,000 threshold for tougher regulations. Again, commissioners agreed.

Neither Bean, the county administrator, nor Lee could recall any time when commissioners have done this.

Storms declined comment for this story, because of the lawsuit and citing the advice of Lee.

Lee said the importance of the vote was largely symbolic. The appeal of Harvey’s decision would be judged largely on the paper record, so not having a county lawyer there to argue in defense of Harvey was not that significant.

Storms is a lawyer, Lee said. “She knew that really no harm was going to be caused by that and she made a statement – a very strong statement.”

And planning director McClendon said the consultant is expected to spend no more than eight hours analyzing the renovation costs. So far, the consultant has placed the value of upgrades to the bar at $157,000 to the exterior alone, well above the $25,000 threshold for tougher redevelopment rules.

Lirot said the estimate is vastly inflated and county laws are vague on what constitutes an upgrade to the property.

The commission’s votes spurred speculation around County Center that heads were about to roll for anyone connected to Harvey’s ruling.

Five days later, a separation agreement was prepared for Allen, the county’s top land-use attorney, who had spent dozens of hours on the issue. He signed it 10 days later, along with a resignation letter that he wrote was submitted “with great apprehension and sadness.” He left without a job.

Allen, 57, one of eight managing attorneys in the office, had met with Storms and Lee on Sept. 13 in Storms’ office to discuss the bikini bar, in the wake of Harvey’s approval.

A 10-year veteran of the office who was making $134,846 annually, Allen had enjoyed consistently strong evaluations. As part of his separation agreement, he agreed not to take legal action against the county, particularly regarding age discrimination, and not to talk about it. In return, he received a severance payment of $40,007.

Kert, who worked for Allen, followed him out the door two weeks later to take a job with the city of Tampa. Kert had previously issued legal opinions about public nudity ordinances that displeased Storms.

The day before she submitted her resignation, she appeared before the commission to answer a question from Storms on an unrelated matter relating to flood maps.

“May I have another county attorney, please,” Storms said, dismissing Kert in front of the other commissioners and people attending the meeting.

Allen declined comment. Kert did not return a telephone message.

Lee said Storms had no effect on either’s employment with the county, and Allen’s departure was a mutual decision.

Asked if anything about their handling of the bikini bar issue played a part in either’s departure, she said, “For Becca, absolutely none,” referring to Kert. She left it at that.

Lee said the attention given to the bar by her staff is a reflection of interest in the community and by the commission. She said it didn’t detract from their work on other matters.

“You may have found there were a significant number of hours spent on this,” she said. “But there were no other issues in this office that suffered because of the attention given to the bar issue.”

The latest twist in the story?

Harvey and her staff recently unearthed an old zoning requirement for parking spaces outside the bar to be at least 200 square feet. The bikini bar parking spaces are smaller.

Late last month, she rescinded her earlier approval of the bar.