UPPER MARLBORO, MD — Jimmy A. Bell is studying to become a minister, but that hasn’t stopped the attorney in him from defending local adult entertainment clubs.Bell, 39, represents a number of strip clubs in Prince George’s County against what he sees as violations of owners’, employees’ and patrons’ Constitutional rights. It isn’t always easy, he said.
“You try to place yourself in a situation that gives the appearance of not doing anything wrong,” he told Gazette.net, a publication of Post-Newsweek Media Inc. “I think my grandmother, who was a very religious woman, wouldn’t want me protecting nightclubs in spite of the Constitutional rights they have.”
However, as an attorney, he said he can’t let government walk all over the people.
“People have misconceptions when dealing with adult entertainment,” he said. “It’s a licensed business. They have the same issues as if they owned a McDonald’s franchise or an auto parts store.”
Bell has been an attorney since 1997. He began representing adult clubs in 2000, but he said his biggest closed case to date sort of snuck up on him in 2006. That’s when a longtime friend — who’s also a male exotic dancer — asked him to become involved in fighting a county ordinance that prohibited semi-nude dancing unless the dancers appeared on a raised stage and didn’t accept tips during performances. A judge struck down much of the ordinance last year, prompting Bell to make a documentary about the case.
Bell wrote, directed and produced Don’t Hate: Strippers Fight the Government, which attempts to humanize exotic dancers by following the lives of male dancers and their patrons at Classics, a cabaret for women. The 50-minute documentary has been accepted for competitive screenings at two film festivals this year: the Black International Cinema festival in Berlin in May and the Hollywood Black Film Festival in June.
According to both Bell and Ed Cloyd, the exotic dancer friend who approached Bell for help in 2006, many people who oppose cabarets have the wrong idea about what really happens inside the clubs.
“…[T]hey don’t look at [exotic dancers] like human beings,” Bell told Gazette.net.
“They don’t look at this like it’s our job,” Cloyd added. “Once they hear ‘entertainers,’ they immediately look down on us.”
Misperceptions are at the root of most adult-entertainment ordinances, Bell noted. In the case of Prince George’s County, the Board of License Commissioners was convinced adult clubs contribute to elements of social decay, including drug use, prostitution and sexually transmitted diseases. However, Bell said, his documentary clearly shows exotic dancers are professionals and the majority of them do nothing substantial to earn their sordid reputations.
Bell remains embroiled in another legal battle involving Classics and a second cabaret, Legend Night Club. That lawsuit, begun in 2005, saw a judge enjoin a state law that required liquor boards to withhold or revoke alcohol licenses from clubs that offer any type of adult entertainment. An appeal is slated to be heard May 30th.
