The print edition of today’s Springfield Republican reports:
…a 22-year-old man was shot in the head while sitting at the bar at the Mardi Gras strip club downtown…
Police said Colon [the victim] had been involved in a “verbal and physical altercation with several other subjects” in the Mardi Gras about 20 minutes prior to being killed…
[Sgt. John] Delaney said police records show police have been called to the Mardi Gras a total of 30 times during business hours since July 1 and another 14 times after-hours for alarm activations…
See also:
Republican: “Springfield police arrest strip club patron for breaking vehicle windows” (5/29/08)
Today’s Springfield Republican
reports on a secondary-effects type incident that took place early
today outside the Fifth Alarm strip club on Worthington Street. Secondary effects are the crime and blight known to attend many adult enterprises.
A 24-year-old Bloomfield street man, kicked out of a strip club for
attempting to take a patron’s money off the bar, went on to smash three
vehicle windows in the parking lot with a tire iron, Springfield police
said…
Gazette: “Strip club ouster ends with carjacking” (9/25/07)
Valley Advocate Website Announces 2008’s “Best” Adult Entertainment Club; Holsopple’s Inside Report on Stripping (explicit language)
If you visit the Valley Advocate website today and click through to their “Best of 2008”
page, you’ll see it leads off with “Adult entertainment club”, partly
because this category starts with “A” and partly because the Advocate
considers this to be just another leisure option, on par with “Art
gallery” or “Charity event”…
Within the “Best of 2008” issue itself, the Advocate
uncritically relays that the Mardi Gras strip club offers a
“convergence of elegance and energy mixed with sophisticated and
sensual decor.”
Springfield Republican Reports on Strip Clubs and the Mafia (7/8/07)
“The individual stated that the owners of these
businesses do not want to pay Bruno, but that Bruno was
pressuring them to pay this money through intimidation of
organized crime,” the source reported. The affidavit
identifies the alleged payers as the Mardis Gras on Taylor
Street, Teddy B’s strip club on Worthington Street, two
other unnamed strip clubs and the Red Rose restaurant on
Main Street…
“The presence of two subjects inside the Mardi Gras
on weekend nights serves to represent the interests of (LCN)
in New York…”
Springfield Republican: “Ware selectmen OK written refusal to deny permit to Robbie’s Place for nude dancing” (12/27/08)
The selectmen have approved a document defining their board’s
opposition to a downtown bar’s request for a 2009 entertainment permit
including nude dancing…
The document says granting the permit
“would adversely affect the public health, safety or order.” It stated
the requested entertainment cannot be held in a way that would protect
employees, patrons and the public from disruptive conduct, criminal
activity, or health, safety or fire hazards…
The document
notes that the bar’s neighborhood is densely populated and includes
multifamily homes where elderly people and children live. It also cites
complaints about the bar lodged by neighbors at the public hearing.
Activist
Strategies: Indiana Feminists Block “Girls Gone Wild”; Berlin Resident
Fights Strip Club Liquor License with Remonstrance Petition
…Berlin, CT newspaper The Berlin Citizen on January 25 named
resident Kurt Kemmling their “Citizen of the Year” for his fight to
stop the Infra Red Café, a topless bar, from getting back their liquor
license.
The Infra Red Café on New Britain Avenue featured topless
dancers and had been the site of numerous incidents of criminal
activity, such as underage dancers, fights that included weapons, noise
problems and numerous infractions of a lesser nature.
US
Appeals Court Upholds Daytona Zoning and Public Nudity Ordinances; No
Grandfathering for Lollipop’s Gentlemen’s Club; Rebutting Daniel Linz (emphasis added)
…Ordinance 81-334 cites two Supreme Court decisions, New York State Liquor Authority v. Bellanca, 452 U.S. 714 (1981) (per curiam), and California v. LaRue, 409 U.S. 109 (1972), both of which upheld prohibitions on nude dancing in establishments that serve alcohol. See Bellanca, 452 U.S. at 718 (upholding statute where the legislature had found that “[c]ommon sense indicates that any form of nudity coupled with alcohol in a public place begets undesirable behavior”); LaRue,
409 U.S. at 118-19 (“The . . . conclusion . . . that certain sexual
performances and the dispensation of liquor by the drink ought not to
occur at premises that have licenses was not an irrational one.”)
…Langston testified that live nude and seminude entertainment
businesses “promote and perpetuate urban decay” and that “adult
businesses have impacted on crime in the area surrounding Daytona
Beach.” Id. at 547. Smith, who as an assistant state
attorney had prosecuted drug and prostitution offenses in Daytona
Beach, concurred that “there were more drug and prostitution offenses in topless bars than in other bars.” Id. at 548.
…the First Amendment does not prevent a city from limiting the venues where dancers may communicate their erotic message…
State
of Minnesota, Report of the Attorney General’s Working Group on the
Regulation of Sexually Oriented Businesses, Office of the Attorney
General (June 6, 1989)
This is a seminal work which investigates
the secondary effects of adult businesses from a number of different
research perspectives. Not only is the effect on crime included, so is
the effect on neighborhood disorganization and disorder, as are the
effects on property values addressed. The New York study also concluded
that business locations with adult-oriented businesses had a
significant loss of sales tax collections (42%) as compared to control
areas. Studies of Minneapolis, St. Paul, Indianapolis, Phoenix, and Los
Angeles are cited. RICO and organized criminal elements of the industry
are also discussed. It was found that dramatic increases in crime rates
were directly associated with the introduction of adult-oriented
businesses into any community studied. Evidence is articulated
indicating that property crimes were forty to fifty percent higher, and
sex-related crimes were found to be seventy to as much as 500 percent
higher–depending upon the municipality. Other non-crime community
issues are also discussed.
Seattle, WA, 1989 (PDF)
Seattle had eight such dance halls (termed “adult cabarets”), six established since 1987…
The
increased number of cabarets resulted in citizen complaints, including
phone calls, letters (from individuals and merchant associations) and
several petitions with hundreds of signatures. Protests cited decreased
property values; increased insurance rates; fears of burglary,
vandalism, rape, assaults, drugs and prostitution; and overall
neighborhood deterioration. The report noted that patrons of these
cabarets most often are not residents of nearby neighborhoods. Without
community identity, behavior is less inhibited. Increased police calls
to a business, sirens and traffic hazards from police and emergency
vehicles are not conducive to healthy business and residential
environments.
Report to the Rome City Commission–Adult Entertainment, Police Department, City of Rome, Georgia, (March 6, 1995) (PDF)
This
report includes crime data from the city of La Grange, Georgia…
Located in that small suburb of Atlanta, is a three-year-old “adult
nightclub.” In just one year (1994) that single adult-oriented
nightclub generated 141 calls-for-service, with thirty-five of those
calls being criminal in nature. Those crimes included such violent
crimes as: eight criminal batteries and eight aggravated assaults
(knives, baseball bats, and firearms with shots fired). The report also
includes many of the other municipal studies articulated elsewhere in
this digest.
NoPornNorthampton Reaches Out to Springfield Neighborhood with Advice on Adult Enterprises
Springfield police dispatch reports from December 1998 through
April 2007 paint a picture of burglaries, panic alarms, ambulance calls
and altercations in and around the Amazing.net store at Apremont
Triangle.
Hampden Superior Court Lets Capital Video Reopen Viewing Booths in Springfield; A Proposed Solution
Capital Video’s Springfield store is not actually in compliance with Springfield’s current zoning regarding adult entertainment. It’s too close to residences, as you can see by using Springfield’s Geographic Information System (Amazing.net is located at 486B Bridge Street). Current zoning specifies:
Section
F-1403. Permitted Districts: Adult oriented uses are permitted with a
special permit from the City Council in Business A,
Business B, and Business C and no other districts, subject to the
following regulations:
- No lot occupied, or to be occupied, by an adult
oriented use shall be located within a seven hundred (700) foot radius
from a residential zoning district or a building containing residences.- No lot occupied, or to be occupied, by an adult
oriented use shall be within a seven hundred (700) foot radius from the
grounds of a school, place of worship, public library or public park.- No lot occupied, or to be occupied, by an adult
oriented use shall be located within a seven hundred (700) foot radius
of any other adult oriented use as defined.
Capital Video is allowed to remain where it is because it’s
“grandfathered”. The store preceded this ordinance. However, that
doesn’t have to be the end of the story. Massachusetts municipalities
can enact an “amortization clause”, meaning that all non-conforming
adult uses have to come into compliance within a fixed period of time.