Sandy Springs, Georgia- After New Year's there will be no more close encounters of the adult kind in Sandy Springs nude dancing establishments. That's because on Tuesday, the Sandy Springs City Council unanimously voted to make adult entertainment a lot less appealing for the patrons and a lot less profitable for the owners.
"City council was concerned about prostitution, violence drunkeness and health effects at adult establishments and took action to remedy that by removing alcohol," said Assistant City Attorney Fred Bentley Jr.
"It was time to shut down the abuses that Fulton County had ignored," Bentley said.
New regulations that go in effect Jan. 1 will eliminate alcohol and VIP rooms in strip joints and establishes a four-foot distance between dancers and patrons at tables, and require seats to be at least 10 feet from stages. It also prohibits booths in adult video stores.
They did allow establishments to stay in their current location for up to five years to recoup their investments.
Atlanta attorney Alan Begner, [pictured] who represents one of the three strip clubs and several video stores in town, said prohibiting alcohol would kill the clubs.
He argued that stirct enforcment of existing regulations was preferable to enacting stricter rules.
"It's easy for local government to bash adult entertainmernt," he said. "Government ought to be slow to destroy businesses that were legal before you got here."
Begner said he expects to challenge the new law in court.
City resident Tom Sechler, 40, said he was uneasy about the council's action and the rights of local businesses.
"To me this sets a precedent. If it puts you out of business, it's a concern to businesses all over. It's a question of due process," Sechler said.
"I think they are just fufilling campaign promises and they're spending a lot of my tax money on a losing battle."
Tuesday's meeting was almost as X-rated as last week's when three private investigators described in jaw-dropping detail what they experienced at the city's three nude dance clubs.
Last week, they talked about offers made by dancers, physical and verbal, and about beatings of unruly patrons by bouncers.
Tuesday, the focus of the discussion was on some of the six adult video stores in Sandy Springs. The private investigators described how they saw patrons in private video booths, called peep shows, use body language to communicate desire through holes cut in the walls.
It was not for the faint of heart.
Prodded by some businesses and some residents, the City Council decided to take on the combative adult entertainment businesses immediately.
On Dec. 13, at the first meeting of the entire City Council, the city's attorneys unveiled new regulations to crack down on adult establishments. They also handed council members a stack of studies they said show crime accompanies adult businesses, a common justification for tougher rules.
The City Council wanted the ordinance in place by January, when all businesses in Sandy Springs have to apply for a yearlong business license.
The ordinance, based on similar court-tested laws in Marietta, Kennesaw and Gwinnett County, include such restrictions as banning alcohol in nude dancing clubs, prohibiting customers from touching the dancers, and restricting hours of operation.
It also forbids them from locating within 400 feet of a residence, church, school, other adult business or government office. The courts have said that local governments can't ban adult businesses or zone them out of existence, but they can dictate where they can go and set rules under which they operate.
But the adult businesses are not intimidated.
They argued that studies by Fulton County Police Department's internal study shows that there's less crime at adult establishments than at other places.
