Whats happeing in detroit

13 comments

• samsung1

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  15 years ago

  Best of luck to Detroit! The government already fucked up the strip clubs in Columbus, OH
• SuperDude

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  15 years ago

  Religious leaders control a lot of the vote in Detroit. In this election year these "leaders" are trying to use their clout to force incumbents, seeking re-election to the city council, to call for a Detroit Police Department crack=down on SCs. At least one public hearing has been held before the City Council, where dancers testified about the loss of jobs and income they would suffer from restrictions under consideration. Mileage has been high and too many people talk about it. So ordinances are being proposed:(1) six-foot rule; (2) no laps; (3)pasties; (4) minimum g-string coverage; (5) and restriction of locations if neighborhood property values are threatened. All of this wound up in federal court in Detroit a few years ago and the judge told the City Law Department to draft an ordinance that would not violate the First Amendment, but protect community values. He did this to avoid ruling on the limits of dancers' First Amendment rights. The Law Department has not been able to come up with an acceptable ordinance. With the passage of time the election year crack-down has started again. The big sign on The Penthouse Club is under attack as damaging to children who see it on a major commercial street. Is it commercially protected speech. Probably so.
  
  While this circus is going on in Detroit, which is desparately trying to recast itself as a convention/destination city, the adjacent suburbs are seeing the reopening of The Landing Strip, Romulus, Michigan, near Metro Airport and the opening of Larry Flynt's Hustler Club in Livonia, MI.
  
  The incumbent council member pushing the crack-down looks like she is in real trouble getting re-elected. As I have written before a female dominated city council, top heavy with "community activists" pushes this reform agenda, from time to time.
  
  The early line is that this will blow over after the election next month when a new, non-incumbent, younger, hipper and pro-business council takes office. The lead candidate, who becomes Council President if he finishes first, is a former news broadcaster who is openly gay--a first for macho Detroit.
  
  
• how

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  15 years ago

  Leftists have run Detroit for many years.
  
  Leftists are ignorant and evil, and anti-American.
  
  Detroit has been suffering as a result.
• Dougster

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  15 years ago

  how: "Leftists are ignorant and evil, and anti-American. "
  
  ^^^ shaddup, stupid!
• SuperDude

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  15 years ago

  It's neither left nor right in the Detroit crackdown on SCs. The groups behind this are homeowners, block clubs and churches. While Detroit has long been a stronghold for the Democratic party, I know that we are not anti-American. Most people opposing SCs would be rightly offended to have their patriotism questioned by idiots who disagree with their politics.
• samsung1

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  15 years ago

  I'm thinking I should make a trip up to Detroit BEFORE the crackdown gets rolling.
• SuperDude

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  15 years ago

  The church across the street is planning a demonstration against Larry Flynt's Hustler Club in Livonia, Michigan.
  
  http://www.freep.com/article/20091022/NE…
• SuperDude

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  15 years ago

  Sorry, it's in Lincoln Park, MI.
• SuperDude

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  15 years ago

  The Detroit election has put in a new city council. The old council of 7 women, 2 men has now been replaced with 5 new members, making it 6 men and 3 women. The women incumbent calling for a crack down on SCs, barely got re-elected. Two retired police officers were elected. My hope is that the two cops will realize that having cops bust SCs is a waste of resources, when crimes against persons and property are killing Detroit.
• Book Guy

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  15 years ago

  I thought it was rightists who were anti-strip-club, and therefore, by definition, ignorant and evil and un-American. :)
• SuperDude

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  15 years ago

  Baptist clergymen are a powerful force in Detroit politics, deriving most of their clout from their ability to: (1) support candidates without actually making an "endorsement" and (2) delivering the votes of their congregations, heavily female. So if angry women don't want husbands/boyfriends going to clubs, they go to the Pastor who can make it a political issue and elected public officals will have to play along to get needed re-election support.
  Many clubs are located on the edge of residential communities. Patrons who act like slobs create noise, congestion and worse, which arouses the ire of the community.
• SuperDude

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  15 years ago

  Detroit aims to clamp down on its strip clubs
  
  
  BY NAOMI R. PATTON
  FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
  
  The City of Detroit is as close as it has ever been to regulating the operation and location of its 31 strip clubs and any future ones.
  
  But lawyers representing the adult entertainment industry say they are prepared to go to court to fight ordinances that they say will put their clients out of business.
  
  On Friday, the council is to introduce separate licensing and zoning ordinances -- which the council discussed at a meeting Tuesday -- to regulate where and how strip clubs operate in the city.
  
  The licensing ordinance would:
  
  
  Ban the sale and consumption of alcohol.
  
  
  Require dancers to wear pasties on their breasts and stay at least 6 feet from patrons on a stage at least 18 inches high.
  
  
  Require dance rooms to be at least 600 square feet.
  
  Council President Ken Cockrel Jr., Council President Pro Tem JoAnn Watson and Councilwoman Brenda Jones supported the inclusion of all of those provisions. Council members Kwame Kenyatta, Alberta Tinsley-Talabi and Martha Reeves supported some of them. Councilwomen Sheila Cockrel and Barbara-Rose Collins did not attend.
  
  "This is terrific that they finally stepped up," said Richard Mack, an attorney who has advocated for the ordinances, said of the council's support.
  
  Scott Bergthold, a Tennessee attorney and expert in shutting down strip clubs, helped craft the ordinances. He assured council members the provisions could withstand First Amendment constitutional challenges.
  
  The zoning ordinance would require new clubs to be located in "intensive" and "special" industrial districts, which are rarely near residential areas and may permit hazardous waste facilities.
  
  The ordinance also would require a 1,000-foot buffer between the strip clubs and schools, parks and churches.
  
  Larry Kaplan, lawyer and executive director of the Association of Club Executives in Michigan and California, called the ordinances unfortunate and pledged to fight them.
  
  Public hearings and a vote are to be held Nov. 20.
  
  
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• SuperDude

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  15 years ago

  So when it came up for a vote, one of the lame duck members of the City Council left the table, depriving the Council of a quorum. No vote until next year, after the five new members take office on January 1, 2010.