COLUMBUS - That's $1.3 million they'll never see again.
Unless a court intervenes, Ohio strip clubs and the adult film industry have nothing to show for the cash they've poured into their effort to ask voters to repeal a new state law restricting the operations of adult businesses.
Marred by an unusually high error rate and apparent fraud, the petition effort fell short of the minimum 241,366 valid signatures of registered voters needed and lost its spot as the only statewide issue on the Nov. 6 ballot.
Any votes cast on Issue 1 on absentee ballots or at polling places won't be counted.
The Buckeye Association of Club Executives spent $785,500, and General Video of America, a Cleveland-based distributor of adult merchandise, added $431,042, according to reports filed this week and in July with Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner's office.
The only real winner appeared to be the Craig Group, the Columbus consulting and public relations firm that oversaw the paid signature-gathering process.
The group was paid $1 million despite the fact that many of the signatures ultimately were deemed invalid.
"It was a difficult, very tight timeline,'' said Phil Craig, the firm's president.
"We averaged about 7,000 signatures a day. Most signature efforts don't get to that level. When you're dealing with mass signatures, there's no way to know what the validation rates are going to be."
He said the strip club group also fell well short of the signatures it had promised from volunteers to supplement those gathered by people paid by the signature.
The law went into effect Tuesday after Ms. Brunner's office formally disqualified the ballot question.
It requires strip clubs, adult book stores, and other "sexually oriented businesses" to close between midnight and 6 a.m. Those with liquor licenses may stay open until 2 a.m., but there can be no fully nude entertainment after midnight.
The law also increases criminal penalties if a fully nude adult performer or an audience member touches the other.
"It shows the importance of having good-quality control to catch problem circulators and problem petitions early in the process,'' said Sandy Theis, a consultant for the strip club group.
"This shows what a huge favor the lawmakers did for CCV [Citizens for Community Values] by not making them go the referendum route,'' she said.
The clubs have asked the Ohio Supreme Court to certify the ballot question by default because some county boards of elections missed a deadline for returning reviewed petitions.
"This is an industry that the courts have said participated in illegal activity and causes crime, decreased property values, and urban blight,'' said Phil Burress, president of CCV.
The conservative, Cincinnati-based group placed the proposed law before the General Assembly in the first place.
"They tried to hijack our name and then changed it," he said.
"They put people on the street who lied to voters, saying the petition would close down strip bars. … They hired ex-convicts to collect signatures, which is a violation of the law …
"So we're supposed to be surprised when, out of 612,000, they've only got 181,000 [valid] signatures?" Mr. Burress asked.
