SCOTTSDALE, AZ – With a September 12th vote looming for Proposition 401, a proposed ordinance that imposes new restrictions on the city’s sexually oriented businesses, both critics and supporters of Prop 401 are taking their case to the public through a flurry of advertising, press releases, and now a televised debate to be aired on local cable.The debate, which was recorded Wednesday August 23rd, pitted property owner Eric Borowsky against Peter Gentala, who serves as general counsel for the conservative group Center for Arizona Policy. Borowsky owns the property where Skin Cabaret is located and his son Todd owns the club itself.
According to an account in the East Valley Tribune, the local newspaper that sponsored the debate, Gentala and Borowsky disagreed about the potential impact of the proposed ordinance, the justification (or lack thereof) for the regulations, and the city’s true intent in crafting the ordinance.
Should Prop 401 pass, the new regulations would include a requirement that a distance of at least four feet be maintained between dancers and patrons, along with proscriptions concerning both interior and exterior lighting for “adult cabarets” like Skin and Babe’s Cabaret, the Scottsdale club owned in part by adult film star Jenna Jameson.
In support of Prop 401, Gentala argued that tighter regulation of strip clubs and other adult businesses was necessary to combat an array of alleged “secondary effects” produced by such businesses.
According to the Tribune, Gentala emphasized his claims by holding up copies of newspapers articles from 2000 and 2004 that reported on a stabbing and robbery outside of Babe’s Cabaret and a man’s kidnapping outside Skin. He also held up a map showing that there were eight sex crimes reported “within a quarter mile” of Skin and seven reported within the same distance of Babe’s between January 2001 and July of 2006
Borowsky derided Gentala’s argument as a scare tactic and observed that Gentala’s data lacked context, like a comparison between the areas surrounding sexually oriented businesses and other neighborhoods in the city, or a statistical report on the areas surrounding other types of businesses.
“He wants to paint this low-life picture,” Borowsky said of Gentala. “We call it ‘imaginary effects.’”
Borowsky also called the city’s process in crafting the new ordinance “fatally flawed,” noting that club owners were cut out of the discussion, and argued that the city’s real purpose in creating the regulations was to drive clubs like Skin out of business.
“This is not about whether you approve of cabarets,” said Borowsky, “this is about fair government, open government, and due process.”
Gentala rebutted by saying the city used a standard and open process in coming up with the new regulations, which Gentala said were reasonable and would not force businesses to close.
In recent weeks, a variety of churches, Christian political action groups, and individual religious leaders have come out in favor of Prop 401, while the Tribune ran a column in opposition on Friday, August 25th.
In its August 25th editorial, the Tribune argued that no evidence has been presented to indicate that the impact of Scottsdale’s two strip clubs on their surrounding community has been any different than any other bar in Scottsdale, and notes that “Scottsdale police have never asserted that either Babe’s Cabaret or Skin Cabaret poses any greater harm to the community than do several other establishments that serve alcohol.”
The proposed ordinance, Ordinance No. 3658, states that the Council “recognizes that some activities which occur in connection with sexually oriented businesses are protected as expression under the First Amendment,” and that “First Amendment rights are among our most precious and highly protected rights, and [the Council] wishes to act consistently with full protection of those rights.”
Accordingly, the ordinance states that the council does not intend to “restrict the content or reasonable access to any communicative materials, including sexually oriented materials,” to “deny reasonable access by adults to sexually oriented materials protected by First Amendment,” or to “deny access by the distributors and exhibitors of sexually oriented entertainment to their intended market.”
Having asserted the above, the Ordinance then states the council’s case for their regulation of sexually oriented businesses, saying the “Council is aware, however, that sexually oriented businesses, as a category of commercial uses, are associated with secondary effects which are detrimental to the public health, safety and welfare.”
As defined by Ordinance No. 3658, such secondary effects include:
“(a) prostitution and other sex related offenses, such as lewdness, public sexual indecency, sexual assault and exploitation;
(b) drug use and dealing;
(c) health risks through the spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases;
(d) infiltration by organized crime for the purpose of drug and sex related business activities, laundering of money and other illicit conduct;
(e) personal and property crimes; and
(f) negative impacts on surrounding properties, urban blight, and litter.”
As to whether these secondary effects are unique to sexually oriented businesses or whether the “association” between such business and the supposed secondary effects is valid, the language of the ordinance seems to suggest that such questions are moot.
The “substantial governmental interest in preventing secondary effects, which is the Council’s rationale for this article, exists independent of any comparative analysis between sexually oriented and non-sexually oriented businesses,” the ordinance states.
Regardless of the outcome of the September 12th ballot, other measures included in Ordinance No. 3658 already adopted by the council will go forward, as those measures are not challenged in the special election.
Those other measures include limitations on the hours of operation for sexually oriented businesses and a variety of operating requirements for “adult video facilities,” including the prohibition of doors, curtains, or other items that would obscure an employee’s view into video viewing booths.
The Prop 401 debate will be aired again on Wednesday September 6th, at 1:00pm, 5:00pm and 8:00pm, on Scottsdale CityCable 11.
A 401 “election pamphlet” which includes both the ballot description of Prop 401 and the full text of Ordinance No. 3658 can be located here: http://www.scottsdaleaz.gov/elections/091206Pamphlet.pdf
