SEATTLE, WA – Within the logic of municipal zoning and business licensing laws, it is a foregone conclusion that strip clubs, topless bars, and other manner of adult businesses create a variety of “negative secondary effects,” including increasing crime rates and reducing property values in the neighborhoods and communities that surround them.In Seattle, three of the city’s strip clubs recently commissioned a study to investigate the secondary effects claims with respect to their establishments and to test the assertion of local politicians and community activists who claim that the clubs are magnets for criminal activity.
The study, conducted by Daniel Linz, a professor of Communication and Law and Society at the University of California, Santa Barbara, concludes that at least with regards to the city’s claims concerning increased crime rates, the relevant statistics contradict the city’s secondary effects assertion.
According to The Seattle Times, the study states that there is “no evidence” that the clubs were “disproportionately more often the source of police attention” than other businesses in the city.
“Crime does not tend to accompany, concentrate around, or be aggravated by these adult business (sic),” Linz asserts in his study, according to the Times.
The study was commissioned in support of a referendum campaign that would overturn a strict new ordinance approved by the city council last year, which requires that dancers stay at least four feet away from their customers, bans tipping dancers directly, and proscribes a minimum level of lighting substantially brighter than the norm for such clubs.
In his study, Linz examined three Seattle clubs; Déjà Vu, which is located near the famous Pike Place Market, the Sands in Ballard, and Rick’s in Lake City.
Seattle has one other club, Centerfolds, but Centerfolds did not participate in the referendum campaign and is not part of Linz’s study.
Linz found, among other things, that Déjà Vu had fewer police calls than regular downtown nightclubs like The Whisky Bar or the Crocodile Café.
The study also notes that while a Fred Meyer store on Lake City Way received over 1,200 calls for service from the police between March 1998 and June 2006, nearby Rick’s received only 375 calls for service in the same period.
The majority of police responses at the clubs were the result of undercover vice operations conducted by the police to check for violations of city ordinances that prohibit the touching of patrons during performances. The Times reports that such inspections have declined in recent years due to police budget concerns and reshuffling of the vice squad’s priorities toward street prostitution and liquor license inspections.
In his study, Linz contends that the decline in undercover operations on the part of the police department is indicative that the police do not regard the conduct within the clubs to be a “sufficient threat to public safety to justify a significant expenditure of their resources.”
Local officials, perhaps not surprisingly, do not find Linz’s study persuasive and argue that the numbers cited in the study aren’t as probative as the study suggests. One reason for their skepticism is that Linz is known for having previously authored studies for other adult entertainment-related businesses, leading to the conclusion that Linz is merely a “hired gun” for the adult industry.
“It kind of reminds me of the tobacco industry hiring consultants to say tobacco was good for you,” said Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis of Linz’s study, according to the Times.
Others dispute how significant the statistics cited in the report are, claiming that crimes that take place at strip clubs are less likely to be reported than crimes that take place at other businesses.
“I think it’s unlikely patrons of strip clubs are likely to call police if things go on in there that might not be legal or appropriate,” said Assistant Police Chief Linda Pierce, according to the Times.
Police spokesman Sean Whitcomb told the Times that people should not read too much into the report’s statistics, asserting that the study found the largest number of police calls generated downtown are to a smoke shop at Second Avenue and Pike Street, a fact that Whitcomb attributes to police frequently writing down the closest street address when they report an incident that takes place at that intersection – an intersection which is a “frequent site of public drinking and drug activity,” according to the Times.
One of the club’s attorneys shrugged off the skepticism expressed by city representatives.
“The numbers speak for themselves,” said attorney for Rick’s Gil Levy, according to the Times, noting that the study “got them from the city.”
Vic Webbeking, who lives next door to Rick’s, leads the campaign, and is reportedly leading the effort to keep the city’s strict new ordinance, told the Times that regardless of the relevant statistics, nobody should consider the clubs to be desirable neighbors.
Webbeking said that he and his wife are frequently bothered by squealing tires, booming stereos, and loud arguments taking place in Rick’s parking lot. Webbeking further asserts that bottles, cans, and condoms have been discarded into his lawn, but said he has never called police because “we would be calling so often we would simply become nuisances.”
Among his previous work on behalf of the adult industry, Linz composed a statement in response to testimony offered to the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Science Technology and Space on the “science” behind “pornography addiction.” Linz’s statement is published on the Free Speech Coalition website and can be found here: http://www.freespeechcoalition.com/FSCView.asp?action=preview&coid=133
