TAMPA, FL — Should local governments regulate private clubs that cater to sexually active adults? That’s the question Hillsboro County officials will attempt to answer in September when code enforcement officials take up the case of a seven-year-old swingers club that may be operating outside the law because it doesn’t have a sexually oriented business license.A quasi-judicial hearing scheduled for September 3rd will determine whether Pleasure Palace should either obtain a license or close. According to the club’s attorney, Luke Lirot, Pleasure Palace should not be regulated under the same codes that apply to adult bookstores, video stores and gentlemen’s clubs because Pleasure Palace’s sexually oriented facilities are for members only. The public portion of the business is a bottle club where nothing “adult” takes place, he said.
“The time-tested arguments against dance clubs don’t even apply,” he told Tampa Bay Online. “It’s obviously not everybody’s cup of tea, but these are human beings. It’s an ideological issue, not an environmental or zoning issue.”
Despite a sheriff’s department investigation that determined nothing illegal has occurred on the premises of the Pleasure Palace, code-enforcement officials view the situation differently. Jim Blinck, operations manager for county code enforcement, told TBO the club should be licensed because “people come in and watch or participate” in sex acts.
“Nobody is dragged into the business,” Lirot responded, adding that Pleasure Palace has not been subject to licensing requirements previously. “It’s purely voluntary, purely consensual.”
The county, however, believes the club is subject to licensing under new ordinances enacted in 2006. The more restrictive laws, drafted at least in part by an outside attorney who specializes in consulting about adult-regulatory issues, incorporate language the county believes covers private clubs and addresses First Amendment issues.
The ordinances already have been court-tested. In October 2006 a federal judge upheld them, saying they “do not constitute a ban on sexually oriented businesses but rather on time, place and manner.”
The ruling did not, however, address the public-vs.-private issue.
