How would you like it if a strip club opened close to your home?

I'm so relieved. I had thought it was something I said.

Chandler: nah, just got started. The whole "be like my religion because if you don't you're unAmerican" thing gets my goat, and I see too much of it here in Bible-Beltonia. Sorry if I got on a soapbox ... :) ...

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Book Guy, I'm not sure why you launched into such a zealous attack on the ancillary effects argument. I already agreed that a lot of it is hot air. Nevertheless, I don't think analogies between strip clubs and libraries or McDonald's are going to convince many people. That's overreaching just a bit, don't you think? Is it your point that because every business can be construed to have some ancillary effect, no business's tendencies should be taken into account?

I don't buy the hot air put out there, about "ancillary effects." By that argument libraries should be relegated to adult establishments, given that the Book of Revelations is often contained therein. Where would Manson's Family be, without their main book of inspiration? Think of all the serial murders we could have prevented, if only people would have admitted to the potential ancillary effects of public libraries!

Car dealerships? Keep them out of town. They contribute to air pollution! Candy factories? And the trucks that distribute candy? Require federal oversight, because they cause obesity. McDonald's? Make sure it's only ever put in a high-income high-education zip code, because only people who are sufficiently trained in the differences between good and bad cholesterol types can be trusted to decide for themselves about the risks of eating McDonald's food. If we were to allow fast food in poor, uneducated areas, we might contribute to diabetes and heart disease. Cows? Only where 'net-trolls can't try to butt-fuck them. That would contribute to the growth of new, as-yet-undiscovered communicable diseases that might mutate from bovine encephalitis and ox-borne malarial gametes.

Ancillary effects? EVERYTHING has potential negative ancillary effects. The point isn't that strip clubs do or don't create them. The point is, whether or not to hold the clubs directly responsible for them by directly curtailing the owners' opportunity to gain profit from the club.

And yes, the owners are generally scum-bags with loose ties to underworld types. Agreed. I think that most of them probably need to be strapped up in a gurney and left in their parking lot on a hot summer day ... but that's another question. :)

Book Guy, I know their's a lot of hot air put out about ancillary effects of strip clubs. However, I don't think that disproves the idea that they can have a bad effect. Maybe it's the high proportion of boorish, brainless strip club owners that are to blame for much of the damage. We all know how many are crappy hosts, so why would they be good neighbors?

Also, I just don't buy the argument that just because they are ostensibly legal strip clubs are innocent, upright places of business. They are a nasty business. Dens of iniquity, to be sure. That's why I'm there. They do a lot of harm to people, strippers and customers. It's their choice, obviously, and I don't believe in denying them (us) the choice. Among other reasons, because I don't beleive it's possible to deny it. However I don't believe the neighbors should be denied the right to keep strip clubs out if that's what they choose, for whatever reason.

BTW, I didn't mean to make too much of property values. I just included that in the hypothetical to indicate proximity and something personal at stake.

Mayor Greg Nichols of Seattle is a strong and vocal opponent to clubs. He wants zoning changes that would require all the clubs to re-locate to a small area south of downtown Seattle in an industrial section of the city. I forget how big the area would be...but, I want to say it would be about eight blocks by eight blocks. wouldn't this just make for a red-light district for street whores and drug dealers. Some of the clubs here are in residentail areas. There's no prostitution near the clubs and no drug dealing going on that I know of. The proximity of the clubs to the neighborhoods does not seem to be a hinderance for home values. So, if a club opened near my house, I wouldn't care at all.

Being gay has nothing to do with the people in the next room. If I choose to fuck a man, my sperm doesn't squirt onto aunt Agatha nearby. But smoking does. If I choose to light up, my second-hand smoke invades aunt Agatha's lungs. That's the usual argument about the "social contract," as founded on Enlightenment philosophy, by which all modern democracies are founded. Smoking affects others than the choosers; homosexuality (presumably) doesn't. Hence the difficulties with legislating against it.

I think we all find the "ancillary effects" reasoning very difficult to stomach, when we hear about another strip club being shut down somewhere. Inevitably the argument is that a good strip club will "cause" the neighborhood to get all sorts of negative effects -- prostitution, drug use, etc. I find that ridiculous and untrue -- most of the places where strip clubs arise, ar eplaces that already had drug dealers, and the infusion of outsiders actually reduces the drugs, for example. And anyway, if the ancillary effects were actually true, wouldn't that be more an indictment of the police force in the jurisdiction, than of the strip club, for the fact that they KNEW WHERE THE SUPPOSED SOURCE OF THE CRIME WAS, had a totally predictable pattern for it, and yet still couldn't prevent it?

So, ancillary effects of strip clubs? The argument doesnt' convince me. Ancillary effects of homosexuality? What are they? They don't exist. But ancillary effects of cigarette smoking? Proven by medical science! Therefore, LEGITIMATE TARGETS for legislators.

Not to say I like how draconian they've been in coming down on second-hand smoke, basically by hitting the panic button. But at least they have "just cause" for addressing the concerns of a certain set of citizens (those who WOULD choose NOT to inhale smoke but, previous to anti-smoking laws, had no choice but to have SOMEONE ELSE'S dirty air IMPOSED on them).

Get the theory? It's called the social contract. It's a fact. It's existed since the 1600s or so. It's being abandoned by religious fundamentalists.

FONDL---- special rights for special people (groups)? Is marriage a special right and are homosexuals special people? My answer would be no on both accounts. As far as no smoking laws go they can't be passed fast enough in public areas, and anyone wanting to conduct business ostensibly is doing it in a public area ergo restaurants, bars and strip clubs are public area (you can't restrict access to a specific group of people).

I'm like chitown, in that I like neighborhoods to be neighborhoods, and commercial to be commercial, each keeping proper distance from each other. Thus, from the getgo, I'd choose my residence to be away (but not nec. "far" from commercial activity). I would not want to locate right next to a megamall, gas station, car dealership, hotel complex, or any other high traffic area. I guess a good "comfort zone" for commercial activity would be 2-3 miles away. I'd be tickled pink if a good stripclub were a 5-10 mile drive away. As for political action: I may not nec. attend a town council meeting, but if issue ever came to ballot, I'd vote like any good SC patron would.

We've got kind of a similar but different situation here 'round these parts. Seems Scottsdale had a couple strip clubs no one cared about. (no one, meaning in city government and the city council). Skin and Babe's Cabaret. Not sure where Skin is, but Babe's has been there forever.. south Scottsdale on a main road and next door to a nice college hangout bar, and probably some ATV offroad store. Lot of car lots around the area.

So everything's cool, until a certain someone who lives in Paradise Valley decides to buy into these two clubs. You might have heard of her.. Jenna Jameson, porn star extrordinaire. She started adverting her name in association with the clubs and all hell broke loose and fire and brimstone from the city council was amazing. There's been a running battle for the past year, with the clubs being completely harrassed and under the microscope, interfering with day-to-day operation. All of a sudden there's a morality battle over clubs that have existed for I don't know how many years.

It's kind of an interesting case.. from the outside looking in because I've never been to either club.. but I can see where if it were one of my favorite clubs, I'd be PISSED. Now here's the bit that should scare everyone around these parts.. This thing is on the ballot in Sept... if it passes the girls will have to keep more clothes on, and stay 4 feet away. I wish I lived in Scottsdale so I could vote on this. It's one of those "slippery slope" situations where if they pass this thing in Scottsdale, who know which other cities in the area will start going "hmmmmm"..

The anti-smoking bills started that way (the kind where you can't even smoke in bars).. and that scares me.. and I ain't even a smoker.

I currently have to drive 50 miles each way to go to the closest strip club. That club is worth seeing, but the long drive is a hassle. There are two other clubs 45 miles away, but the cover charges are too high and therefore I have never attended. The largest college in Virginia is located in my home town and there is another major college close by. BUT THERE ARE NO STRIP CLUBS IN THE AREA. I would open one myself if I knew how to do it and if I had the money. I think a club would be very successful here. It's torture walking around and seeing all the young college girls and not having a strip club here. There would definitely be girls who would dance at one. So I keep waiting!!!!!!

But Mons makes much of its money BECAUSE it's close to the football stadium, don't you think?

And I don't really see the argument about keeping (bottled) liquor stores out of residential neighborhoods or a long way away from schools. Presumably they aren't selling to children anyway?

It's kind of like the old arguments over tobacco taxes. On the one hand the government's position implies that smoking cigarettes is bad, and they want to stamp it out, by reducing advertising, putting labels on packages, running ad campaigns of their own, etc. On the other, they're pretty damned happy to take those exorbitantly high tax dollars year after year ... If the gov't were REALLY against smoking they'd just, well, outlaw it, and do without all the revenue that it entials, too.

In all reality I don't think that they have a great deal of devaluation of property in an industrial part type of area. They have no business and should not be allowed in any residential area much like a liquor stores should not be allowed within a certain distance of a school.
Most industrila part type areas are just that home to non reatail type establishments that do very little public business save a few deliveries and vendors coming and going as well as their workers and I doubt that they would be offended by them. In fact i would wager to say that the great fights that have occurred in Tampa over the years would have never happened had the Mons Venus owner moved his place off of Dale Mabry which is one of the most visible streets in Tampa and right on the way to the Football stadium over to an industrial party like thay asked him to years ago. Ybor Strip is out in a semi indsustrial area sort of east of Tampa and you never hear of any issues with that club, but 2001, Mons and a few other flaunt themselves right in front of the world.

I think we're all overlooking one important fact here, and that is that the number of clubs is increasing, not declining. If clubs were being shut down left and right, maybe we'd be more willing to get involved. I'm not aware of any clubs in my area that have shut down in the last 20 years, but I can name a bunch of new ones that have opened. So when someone wants to open another one and there's some community opposition, I don't consider it a very important issue.

Huge, you're missing my point. I think everyone should have the same rights. That's why slavery was so wrong, one large group of people was excluded from having the same rights as everyone else. But I'm opposed to creating special rights for special groups.

Weak rationalizations -- I agree. I can't imagine that your position is assailable, and I didn't mean to claim that I wanted to defend the one I outlined in my post above. I was just saying that LOTS OF PEOPLE actually do live by the "hypocrisy" we've now described. It's a fact of democracy -- do one thing, want another, vote a third, holler about a fourth, say a fifth when you go to church ... etc.

I think I'm such a bit player in the REAL situations -- I don't own property (and can't see ever affording it in my lifetime) and drive long distances to go to clubs, so my "position" isn't typical to this discussion. Or is it?

I always vote against Bible-thumpers, if that's any consolation. Others?

The hypocrisy that bothers me is when I read posts on this or other SC boards complaining about groups that want to shut down or restrict strip clubs. Usually, these groups are simply trying to maintain their idea of a level of propriety in their own communities. Unless you're cool with a strip club in your own backyard, I believe you should be content to live with the actions other citizens take to keep clubs out of theirs.

Furthermore, if you do have a problem with the arguments such groups advance, it seems to me the place to take your stand is in the public arena where it needs to be persuasive and, if so, it counts for something. Here, it comes off annoyingly as so much hand wringing.

Unfortunately, the main torch carriers for the cause are indeed the club owners, using whatever tactics they can to protect their investment. It kind of tempers one's desire to get involved when that means sticking your neck out on behalf of some sleazeball with a liquor license who's probably out to screw you anyway. The concept of "voting with your feet" to bolster his funds for lawyers and bribery strikes me as a pretty weak rationalization, but in most cases it might be the best we can come up with.

The problem is, that although we may want (for example) more contact, we also may not want our neighbors to KNOW that we want more contact. Comes up election after election across the country, this type of conundrum. It's an essential hypocrisy in the supporters (myself included) of adult establishments -- we wish to get the fun without having to have the stigma. "They" (the stigmatizers) thereby are always winning, because it puts the patrons in a lose-lose situation.

Sucks, but its true.

I dunno, I think if a club showed up in my neighborhood and plenty of Bible-thumpers started hollering all their doomsday crap, I'd be comfortable hollering back that they were un-American fucks for insisting that their religion be practised by me. But if the opposition were more sensible about it, basically saying "it's a den of ill-repute", "it degrades women", "it leads to other crimes", and all those other smarmy kludges that we know aren't true but still gain votes? I think I'd have to remain ... distant ... from the equation.

But patronizing the establishment is, in itself, a type of voting. You're voting with your feet, and your dollars. Working there is, as well, for the girls. And, of course, paying off the cops and paying lots of liquor taxes etc., that's a type of making their position known that the clubs themselves are constantly undergoing.

I appreciate everyone's candor on the question of a club in your own backyard. I still haven't heard anybody say they would take part in any effort on either side of a dispute over a club's opening. I'm curious to hear why not, and if there ever could be a circumstance under which you would (e.g., over a move to restrict contact at your favorite club)?

So no matter how society evolves if a minority group didn't have specific rights enumerated to them than they would be prohibited from ever realising them? Being a strip club aficionado (as all of us are) I am loathe to deprive anyone of their individual rights espesh if it's withing confines of quite a reasonable law (I don't feel most of the drug laws are reasonable, unless you're going for ineffectiveness)

Huge, yes I do support most of the individual rights that you mentioned but I don't support creating new ones that haven't previously existed for specific minority groups.

Chandler, I wouldn't participate on either side of the dispute, it isn't that important to me. And I don't think it would have any impact on my property value.

It would be cool if it were right next door to me! I would probably be the nightly ruckus. But that's just me...

My philosophy would be to live and let live. I wonder if FONDL while granting rights to let property pretty much set up wherever it wanted (I think that's what he said) feels that he doesn't also have the right to tell INDIVIDUALS juss what it is they can and can't do? As far as drug use (espesh marijuana), gay marriage and abortion go (not to mention helmet and seatbelt laws). I'd have no prob with a stripclub opening near me but I wouldn't protest for or against it. I'd be agnostic reagarding its presence. there's more to life than property values.

I've got one 3-5 miles from residence....and that's perfect.

I've got one 3-5 miles from residence....and that's perfect.

If a strip club is already operating in a residential area and most residents don't have a problem with it, neither do I. However I'm not going to support a new strip club that wants to plant itself obnoxiously in the middle of a neighborhood especially when most residents don't want it there. If you're talking money that would make property values go down, I understand the fight against that. On the other hand if someone said my property values would skyrocket and they were right, put it next door. I think industrial areas or near other bars and clubs is fine.

Humm.. I think the nearest strip club to where I live is within 2 miles. And that particular club is pretty much smack dab in the middle of neighborhoods. In fact the closest 5 clubs off the top of my head here are all adjacent to neighborhoods... perhaps fronting to a major street, but just a wall away from housing developments in back. So it probably wouldn't bother me too much, I'm kind of used to it.. (assuming it wasn't ultra-loud and ultra garish)

For me, it would probably RAISE the property values! It certainly would be a greater drain on my wallet than clubs currently are, especially since I'd do everything I could to become "house mom" to any girlies who needed a nice shoulder to cry on or a safe place to stay when their boyfriend(s) got a little bonkers on the white powder ...

FONDL: First I asked if anyone would participate, not specifying which side. Then, I asked you if you would participate on the opposite side to the one you had already answered about. A bit about why might be nice, as well.

I would dislike it. I am a big believer in living in quiet, Norman Rockwell-esque neighborhoods, and travelling for your vice. We have taverns within three or four blocks of my house, but they are the kind of neighborhood taverns in which kids could hang out with their fathers on a Saturday afternoon...almost an extension of the family living room, in the style of English pubs. I would not want to have some garish, loud establish of any type in my neighborhood, whether naked women were involved or not. We like it here in Grover's Corners. I think that strip clubs are best situated in industrial areas.

I'd like it, of course, but where I live, they have an ordinance against that sort of thing. Not that it would have a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding, anyway.

Chandler, your original question specified that the club would be in the nearest commercial area, which would be about a mile from my house (closer as the crow flies.) I wouldn't care if that happened, but the chances of it happening are zero. A couple years ago an AMP opened in a strip mall not far away. It lasted about 2 months before it was shut down. And I already answered that I wouldn't participate in any effort to oppose a new club.

FONDL: I understand that you wouldn't oppose it, but how would you feel about it? And would you participate in an opposition to those trying to keep it out?

I live in a residential neighborhod and I don't think SC's belong in residential areas. I would have no problem with a strip club opening within a few miles of my home in a downtown or industrialized area.

Chandler, I'll try to avoid anything to do with oil but I do have to briefly mention part of my political philosophy to answer the question. I don't think I have any right to tell someone else what to do with their property, as long as it doesn't represent a safety or health hazard. To me the freedom to do what you want with your own property is a basic freedom which should be protected much more strongly than it is. As a result I wouldn't oppose a nearby strip club opening nor would I particicpate in any attempt to keep it out. But I wouldn't be a customer if it was that close to home.

Something similar actually happened many years ago. A group wanted to buy a farm just down the road from my development and turn it into a professional theater. I was the only one in our neighborhood who refused to sign a petition to deny the necessary zoning change. The theater group ultimately purchased a farm about 3 miles away and it has become extremely successful and upscale. I would love to have it just down the street from me.

When I first moved here there was a small bar/restaurant about a mile away that sometimes had strippers on weekends. The place is still there but it's become more upscale and they stopped having strippers a long time ago. I never heard of anyone objecting when they had strippers, but the area has become much more upscale and probably would generate opposition today.

There's an abandoned gas station about 10 miles from me that a group is trying to turn into the area's only strip club. They're running into lots of opposition and I doubt if it will ever happen. I'd go to that one.