SCOTTSDALE, AZ – When super porn star Jenna Jameson comes to town it’s a sure thing that crowds will follow. This past Monday, those crowds gathered at the Scottsdale, Arizona City Hall and numbered more than 200.The reason for the crowd wasn’t merely to celebrate the fact that one of the most successful women in adult entertainment had come to town, but also because the City Council was working its way through a list of possible ways to crack down on sexually oriented businesses in the area and Jameson, who wants to open an exotic dance club, had a few thoughts to share on the subject.. In spite of Jameson’s presence, no ultimate decision concerning the city’s ordinance was made.
As is to be expected, local strip club owners are not pleased about the possible changes and, in fact, believe that the City Council could make it nearly impossible for them to run their businesses as they have for decades.
Dick Hertzberg, a First Amendment attorney who represents Jameson expressed frustration that the city was resistant to giving his client an opportunity to open and run her business.
“What you have in your hands tonight,” he said in summation, “is a ‘Put us out of business card.’”
Citizens determined to do precisely that had their opportunity to speak before the City Council, as well, including Scott Bergthold, whom Hertzberg described as “a hired gun for the Christian right,” and who was also involved in the drafting of the proposed law. According to Bergthold, the council has the right to regulate strip clubs due to their “secondary effects,” which include prostitution and the spread of disease.
These allegations aside, the majority of those who spoke to the council supported the rights of area clubs to operate as they have been doing. Even the Scottsdale Area Chamber of Commerce spoke in defense of the clubs which, according to Hertzberg, already operate under some of the most stringent laws in the state. The owner of the Papago Brewing Company, who had served in the Coast Guard, expressed concerns about the blurring of protections between church and state and the expenditure of tax revenues for a law that would likely wind up in the middle of expensive court battles.
Much of the impetus behind revisiting the already strict laws appears to stem from the fact that Jameson’s proposed club brought the previously low-profile strip club businesses into the limelight last August when she bought Babe’s and announced her intent to renovate the cabaret and re-open it as an exclusive gentleman’s club called Club Jenna. City attorneys prepared themselves for revisions to the sexually oriented business ordinance, nicknamed the S.O.B. Part of their plan involved hiring the services of the publicly far right-leaning Bergthold, famous for nationally prosecuting anti-adult business cases and his association with the Christian-based Alliance Defense Fund. It was then that some club owners believe “the process took on a life of its own and began to run amok,” as John H. Weston, attorney for Skin Cabaret, described it.
According to Weston, who has 25 years experience defending adult businesses, the proposed changes are part of “a very, very extremist proposal” that would likely spend years being sorted out in court. Among options likely to cause trouble are a total ban on alcohol, a prohibition against clubs being grandfathered in, and a redefinition of the term “semi-nude” to include dancers wearing thong panties (but not women in shopping malls or resort swimming pools).
