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Some [Ohio] strip clubs dancing around new law

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Maryland

Some strip clubs dancing around new law

Sunday, October 21, 2007 4:03 AM

By James Nash and Jeb Phillips
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

The party was supposed to be over. But was it really?

Just before midnight Friday at Columbus Gold, a semi-nude bar near the intersection of Bethel and Sawmill roads on the Northwest Side, the announcer signaled that the re-imposition of moral values in Ohio would have to wait.

"We're going to party all night long and look at naked ladies!" he called out to the mixed crowd.

After that, tops came off. The VIP rooms remained open, promising one-on-one dances to patrons with $25 to spare. One topless dancer gave a man a lap dance, although her acrobatic gyrations avoided brushing against his lower body.

Columbus Gold apparently danced around new limits on adult entertainment in Ohio that took effect at midnight Wednesday. Enforcement of the law remained in doubt until a judge struck down an attempt to block it Thursday. The law prohibits adult entertainment -- defined as nude or topless dancing -- between midnight and 6 a.m., and outlaws any kind of physical contact with customers at any time.

Roughly 48 hours after the law took effect, The Dispatch sent reporters to three strip clubs on Friday night to see whether they were complying.

Notwithstanding the announcer's claim, the women at Columbus Gold weren't naked. At most, they were topless -- which would violate the new law -- but the manager insisted they put pasties on to conform to the law. To the untrained eye, the pasties were all but invisible.

"It does look like skin tone," said Clay Smith, a manager at the club working Friday night. "We're doing everything the best we can. We're trying to play by the rules."

One of the Columbus Gold dancers said managers called the women in for a meeting Wednesday, when it appeared that the new regulations were inevitable, and told them how to stay on the right side of the law. Managers said touching a customer's shoulders would be OK, the dancer said, but gyrating in his lap wouldn't.

Next door at Vanity Adult Resort, a members-only club that doesn't serve alcohol but allows customers to bring their own, midnight also passed without notice. There, a dancer said, managers interpreted the law as forbidding all-nude dancing but not topless dancing. There was no attempt to conceal nipples. Dancers jiggled their breasts in customers' faces and accepted dollar bills slipped in their panties.

One dancer, who declined to give her name, said business already is down and some of the women are thinking about plying their trade elsewhere -- Las Vegas, or even Indiana.

"How many people are losing their jobs?" asked one regular patron, who gave his name as John. "I'm a massive, massive Republican, and I think this is ridiculous."

Club managers at Vanity declined to comment and asked a reporter interviewing patrons to leave.

At the House of Babes on the South Side, the no-touching rule was being broken.

At one table, a man was rubbing a dancer's legs. Four seats over, a dancer sat in a man's lap. She kissed him on the mouth, then kissed him again.

A dancer on stage, wearing only a thong, draped her arms over a man's shoulders. And after she danced two songs, she took a man with a ponytail backstage for a private dance. He sat on a sofa, and she sat on top of him with her back to his face.

A dancer came up to a reporter who was watching, put her arm around him and said, "Did you get to see my entertainment?"

Larry McFarland, the day manager at House of Babes, said it's difficult to know whether the club is breaking the new law because its limits are unclear.

"Nobody knows what 'dressed' means," he said. "My definition and (the legislators') are probably different."

House of Babes dancers were told to stop topless dancing when the law took effect, he said, and the women wear bikinis during the day. The night manager at House of Babes could not be reached for comment.

"We've been preaching this for three months that this is coming. We're supposed to be responding" to the new law, McFarland said. "It's the law. We're going to have to abide by it."

There was no evidence of enforcement at the three clubs visited by Dispatch reporters Friday night. Columbus Gold was patrolled by a moonlighting Columbus police officer, although he said his job was to protect the dancers from unruly patrons, not to act as "nipple patrol."

Dispatch reporter Simone Sebastian contributed to this story.

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Regulating adult entertainment

Highlights of the new Community Defense Law:

• Requires "sexually oriented businesses" to close between midnight and 6 a.m. Clubs with liquor permits can remain open after midnight, but adult entertainment must cease.

This includes adult bookstores, video stores and motion-picture theaters, sexual-device shops and "sexual encounter" centers. It does not cover businesses selling or renting R-rated movies.

• Prohibits touching a nude or semi-nude dancer or their clothing in a club, anywhere else on the premises or in the parking lot. This excludes members of the dancer's immediate family.

Touching a dancer's genitals, buttocks or the "female breast below a point immediately above the top of the areola" is a first-degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. Any other contact is a fourth-degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a $250 fine.

Source: Legislative Service Commission