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Finally, a strip-club trial?

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Ohio

Both sides are lining up their braces of legal ducks in preparation for a long-awaited federal lawsuit over a proposed strip club on Stimson Avenue in Athens.

Demetrios Prokos - who owns the site - and Christopher Stotts - who wants to open a club there featuring nude dancing - sued the city in federal court in 2011 over the city's refusal to grant a zoning permit for the project.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley denied a request by the city filed Dec. 3 to reconsider an earlier ruling in the lawsuit. This latest ruling clears the way for a trial, set to begin next Tuesday in Columbus.

In Marbley's earlier ruling Sept. 30, he had denied requests by both parties for summary judgment.

In its subsequent motion asking Marbley to reconsider that ruling, the city had argued that because Stotts and Prokos have already litigated the essential aspects of their dispute with the city in Athens County Common Pleas Court and Ohio's 4th District Court of Appeals, they should not get a "second bite at the apple" in federal court.

In his latest ruling, Marbley turned the city down, stating that its attorneys "have not provided this court with sufficient information to revise its earlier summary judgment," and suggesting that the city's motion was trying to "re-litigate issues previously considered by the court."

A final pre-trial order, filed Jan. 2, lays out the terrain for the coming civil-rights trial.

The issues to be settled at trial, it says, are:

• Whether the city's refusal to issue Stotts and Prokos a zoning permit was retaliation, or if it deprived them of their First Amendment rights. (Nude dancing, which was to be the entertainment in the club, is a legally protected form of expression);

• Whether Prokos and Stotts were denied equal protection of the law; and

• How much in damages (e.g. lost rents and profits) the plaintiffs have suffered by being denied the permit.

The city also has submitted a list of issues about which it wants to question potential jurors during the voir dire process.

These include standard questions about such matters as whether the potential juror knows any of the principals, witnesses or attorneys in the case. It also includes questions such as:

• Did you or a close family member attend Ohio University?

• Do you now own, or have you owned, property in Athens?

• Have you, a friend or a close family member ever been involved with running, owning, working for or investing in an "adult entertainment business"?

• Have you ever been a customer of a strip club?

The city also has submitted a trial brief laying out what it intends to argue at trial.

The brief states that the gist of the city's arguments has already been laid out in its motions for summary judgment. However, it adds, the city's attorneys anticipate asking for judgment in the city's favor as a matter of law, based on the following arguments:

• That the plaintiff's claims are barred because they haven't shown they're entitled to any of the permits Stotts applied for;

• That the final ruling from Athens County Common Pleas Court in an earlier lawsuit means the case already has been adjudicated, and the federal court is barred from hearing it by the legal principle of res judicata;

• That the plaintiffs lack legal standing to bring the suit;

• That Prokos, who is the landlord of the site proposed for the strip club, has suffered no "injury in fact" through the city's denial of the permit;

• That the plaintiffs weren't denied equal protection, because the city code office - despite the plaintiffs' claims to the contrary - did take action on their first permit application within a legally required deadline;

• That a comparison by the plaintiffs of their own case to that of a local bar owner, who got an otherwise illegal zoning permit because the city waited too long too act on his application, is comparing legal apples to oranges; and that

• The plaintiffs aren't entitled to any compensatory money damages because they haven't presented enough evidence to let a jury find for them on that issue.

The city also indicates that it intends to challenge any attempt by Stotts and Prokos to testify about what other people, experienced in the adult entertainment industry, have told them about the business.

If the plaintiffs try to talk about such conversations in order to suggest how much money they might have made running a strip club, the city indicates, it will challenge this testimony as hearsay.

Some readers of The Athens NEWS have questioned how much the city is spending to defend the lawsuit. City Law Director Patrick Lang said Tuesday that the city has spent nothing, because its insurer, which would probably have to pay for any settlement, is handling the case.

http://www.athensnews.com/ohio/article-4…