ABQJOURNAL OPINION/GUEST_COLUMNS: City Should Toughen Its Regulation of Strip Clubs

Friday, April 15, 2011

City Should Toughen Its Regulation of Strip Clubs

By David Maddox
Assistant director, RELEASE
           There is talk whether or not Albuquerque needs a new strip club near San Mateo Boulevard and McLeod Road. I am against the proposed strip club because Defined Fitness is less than 100 feet away and has a day care/preschool in its facility, and according to Rep. Nate Gentry, "it's also within 500 feet of several child day-care facilities."
        A public hearing on the strip club will likely be scheduled this month. In the meantime, Albuquerque should look at tightening up its regulations of such businesses.
        According to the Albuquerque city ordinance, "adult amusements" must be at least 1,000 feet from any other adult amusement establishment or adult store and 500 feet from the nearest residential zone, church or school. Of course you need a business license, but that is it. According to ordinance, there is no other regulation.
        Dallas currently regulates strip clubs, adult stores and adult entertainment under the more appropriately titled Sexual Oriented Business ordinance. It suitably addresses a more thorough regulation for location and operation in a dedicated 31-page chapter as opposed to our few sentences that lay in obscurity in the Albuquerque Zoning Code.
        Concisely, Dallas requires its sexually oriented businesses to possess a valid license of operation. A licensee must designate an operator(s) who will be on the premises all the time, and the chief of police clears the operators. Imagine if we had this regulation prior to the former Albuquerque's Ice House strip club owner Bobbie McMullin, who faced charges of racketeering, sexual exploitation of children and promoting prostitution. This type of applicant would be disqualified under the Dallas ordinance.
        Police and other city officials can inspect the sexually oriented business at any time. For an example, the health department can verify the cleanliness of the changing rooms.
        The sexually orientated business must have employees' addresses on file for the 12 months prior to their start date of employment. This will prevent human trafficking because police can verify the performers' places of residence. For Albuquerque, I prefer a central database of all employees of sexually oriented businesses accessible to the Police Department.
        I also would initiate that performers be employees and not contractors. Thus, all employees will pay taxes and this will limit some of the monetary exploitation that some performers face in this arena. Some performers must pay the strip club management for using props in their dance acts and make change from their tips with the club's bartender.
        Albuquerque already heavily regulates pawnshops that monitor the presence and flow of goods, but it does not regulate the strip clubs that would monitor the presence and flow of people. The pawnshop ordinance requires a special license and says police may inspect the pawnshop without a warrant. Actually, the pawnshop is very easy to find in the city's ordinance under Chapter 13 and there it is, under Article 6 in big blue letters "Pawnbrokers," as opposed to ever finding sexually orientated business.
        I respect our regulation of pawnshops; it protects all citizens from the sale of stolen goods. Similarly, we should regulate sexually orientated business that deal with people and not things. Additionally, regulating sexually oriented business will likewise protect our youths from a stepping-stone that will eventually lead to a form of prostitution, and it will reduce the exploitation and abuse of those who work in such establishments. Regulation will also discourage human traffickers from using sexually oriented businesses as a front for their operations.
        We need to ask ourselves, why wouldn't human traffickers and prostitution rings use our sexually oriented business? After all, there is no regulation.
        RELEASE is an Albuquerque advocacy group that seeks to abolish human trafficking. For more information, visit releaseglobal.org or contact David Maddox at david@releaseglobal.org.

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