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Strip club set to reopen in Hallandale Beach

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Hallandale Beach's only strip club is slated to reopen this summer, more than two years after the city shut it down following a lengthy police investigation into allegations of prostitution and drug dealing.

The city commission approved a deal allowing for the Cheetah Hallandale Beach's return, halting a potentially losing legal battle that could have left taxpayers on the hook for more than $2 million in attorneys' fees alone. Even with the agreement, the city is out $211,836 in legal costs and fees for expert testimony, according to figures provided by the city.

"This is going to be a gentleman's club—the old-fashioned type," said Joe Rodriguez, the Cheetah's owner. "Good music. Good drinks. Pretty women."


He said he hopes to open by the end of July after he finishes remodeling the 12,000-square-foot building just east of Interstate 95 on Hallandale Beach Boulevard.

Mayor Joy Cooper isn't happy. She was the lone dissenter when the commission voted 4-1 last month to settle two court cases involving Rodriguez.

"Fool me once, you're not going to fool me twice," Cooper said. "I believe the owners and operators of this establishment haven't had their feet held to the fire."

Cooper unsuccessfully urged other commissioners to vote against the settlement, saying that the Cheetah should have to pay more for the right to operate as the city's sole adult entertainment establishment.

The Cheetah will be paying the city $4,000 a month when it reopens, with that fee rising to $5,500 a month within the next four years.

State liquor authorities and local police raided the club in March 2009 following a 19-month undercover investigation into prostitution and drug-dealing there. They seized five months' worth of videotapes taken inside the club, including in the private back rooms where dancers were recorded engaging in sex acts with customers.

Authorities arrested 16 dancers and two managers, almost all of them on misdemeanor charges. Rodriguez was never criminally charged.

Rodriguez closed the club after the state obtained an emergency order suspending the liquor license. Two months later, he cut a deal with the Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco to sell the license. The city subsequently yanked his occupational licenses, a move Rodriguez claimed effectively blocked him from selling the club for a fair value.

The Cheetah's owner filed a federal lawsuit against the city, accusing its officials of stifling his First Amendment right to free expression. A second lawsuit also sought to turn a closed restaurant in front of the Cheetah into an adult video store.

"I was willing to go to the high courts," Rodriguez said. "It's a little tough giving up when you know you're right. Did we make mistakes? Yes. Did we make mistakes to close us down completely like there were people getting killed here? No."

Rodriguez agreed as part of the settlement to abandon plans for the adult video store. In addition, the Cheetah will no longer have private rooms—commonly known as champagne rooms--but can have walls up to four feet high in certain areas of the club.

Rodriguez said he never saw the videos showing dancers having sex with patrons.

"If you asked me the question, 'Has anyone ever had sex (in the champagne rooms)?', I would say: yes," Rodriguez said. But, he said, "it wasn't out of control."

Though Rodriguez surrendered the Cheetah's liquor license to the state two years ago, he has since gotten another liquor license to reopen the business.

The deal with the city also calls for the Cheetah to pay $75,000 to the city to help defray the nearly $287,000 in legal costs incurred by Hallandale Beach in fighting the lawsuits as well as attempting to formulate a local adult entertainment ordinance.

Rodriguez, who owns three other strip clubs in South Florida, estimates his legal fees over the past two years have topped $1 million. That comes on top of the money he lost by being shut down.

Cooper said the Cheetah's legal battle got "personal" and "ugly." She said a public records request was filed for police calls out to her home address.

"That shows the lack of integrity of this business owner," said Cooper, who has made no secret that she has never wanted the club in the city. The Cheetah first opened in 2002 after Hallandale Beach reached an agreement with Rodriguez to halt an earlier federal lawsuit he filed objecting to city zoning ordinances.

Before the April 6 commission vote, Commissioner Keith London said if the city chose to engage the Cheetah in a protracted legal fight, it would be putting a significant amount of taxpayers' money at risk.

Under the deal with the club, "instead of bleeding money, we will be getting money," he said.

He pointed out that only three members of the public were in attendance at the commission meeting.

"If this was a burning issue for residents of Hallandale Beach to close this facility, I'm sure we'd have a packed house," London said.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward…