Well, here you go and here we go. One step closer to being just another boring e-zine. Yeah, right!

Nastyman Radio Show Goes Z Bone
May 26, 1998

On May 22 the Nastyman radio program on Talkradio FM 97.1 had Ann (my Dancer of the Month for June), as a guest, along with her friend Sydney. Ann promoted her website and managed to mention this website on the show as well. Then on May 26, Christine (my Dancer of the Month for May) was also on the show.

According to Ann and Sydney, the Nastyman wasn't so nasty afterall. Sydney says, "the bald man with a tan from Guam is a nice guy. I did some lap dances on the show for the Karioki contestants and we helped judge the contest." Lap dances?! And that doesn't qualify as nasty?

I've listened to his show and I think he's nasty enough for me. He likes Ultimate Fighting and strippers. Gotta love it. I can't resist a radio show with a host named Nastyman. If all this sounds interesting to you too, tune in to his show on FM 97.1 from 1:00 am to 3:00 am, Monday through Fridays. Perfect timing to listen in your car as you drive home from a strip club.

Strip Clubs Increase Crime?
May 3, 1998

In an article by Daniel M. Weintraub of the Orange County Register, Assemblyman Scott Baugh is once again trying to link strip clubs to crime. In case you didn't hear already, Baugh is the politician in Orange County who is trying to close down all strip clubs in California. The studies that Baugh sights are a 1991 analysis by two professors at the University of California, Irvine, which examined X-rated bookstores, not dance clubs.

According to the article, this study was a microscopic look at crime in the 1980s along a stretch of Garden Grove Boulevard. Two UCI professors compiled data on 34,079 crimes and pinpointed them to within 40 feet of where they occurred. Then they used a computer to match those offenses with the locations of seven adult businesses. Their conclusion: The businesses posed a major "public safety hazard." Though the study did not look at dance clubs, the authors said that the difference shouldn't matter. "I can't think of any reason why the results wouldn't be the same," said Richard McCleary, a UCI sociology professor and statistician who co-conducted the study.

According to the article, the study did find that crimes against people and property, including violent crime, rose when new bookstores opened or existing ones expanded. More robberies, car break-ins and auto thefts, for example, were reported in the immediate vicinity of the businesses. That sounds ominous. What the study doesn't mention, yet the authors acknowledge, is that in the vast majority of the crimes, the adult-business patrons were probably not the perpetrators. They were the victims.

Los Angeles to Tighten Restrictions
February 18, 1998

By GreenDog <greendog1@earthlink.net>

The Los Angeles City Council met at the Encino Community Center on February 18, 1998. One of the proposals, co-sponsored by Cindy Miscikowski (11th District) and Rudy Svorinich (15th District), was a motion to amend the Los Angeles Municipal Code (LAMC) to: (a) broaden the scope of definitions of adult entertainment businesses, and, (b) require a CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT for the operation of any new sexually oriented adult entertainment businesses within the city's zone located more than 500 feet from a religious institution, school or public park. This permit would allow the City Council to set conditions on hours of operation, design, security, etc. According to THE DAILY NEWS, this comes in the wake of Los Angeles Zoning Administrator Dan Green's closure of a sexual encounter club called the Prowl in Hollywood because it was operating near a residential area.

At the council meeting, Ms. Miscikowski cited numerous loopholes in the current LAMC which allowed certain facilities (presumably including massage parlors and sexual encounter clubs) to skirt city regulations. When the floor was opened to public testimony, Don Schultz of the Van Nuys Home Owners Association and Geoffrey Saldovar (sic?), a member of a local watchdog group, called for action to protect their community from the detrimental effects of such clubs. A counterpoint was brought by one audience member (me!) who suggested that the almost prohibitive steps currently required to open a gentlemen's club were sufficient and, if anything, have backfired by creating a "survival of the fittest" environment where the only clubs left now are chain-owned, backed with enough legal and financial firepower to make exterminating them impossible. It was also brought to the City Council's attention that the pattern of harassment on these clubs includes expending otherwise important L.A.P.D. manpower on ensuring that no lewd acts are committed by young women during lap dances when (perhaps) these officers might be better utilized fighting crime elsewhere.

Hal Bernson (12th District) said that he supported the intent of the measure, but voiced his concern that the current standard, based on a Detroit ordinance from 1981, had already been tested in the Supreme Court and further modifications might not be able to survive in the higher courts. He then chastised yours truly for implying that no one was injured by these consensual acts (because, he reasoned, personal freedom could not take precedence over the greater good of the community, which was damaged by the presence of these businesses).

Mike Hernandez (1st District) took the microphone and bemoaned the detrimental effects of adult clubs in his district. (You may recall that Hernandez reportedly had a sizable pornography collection discovered in his City Council office in the aftermath of his arrest for buying cocaine from undercover cops.) Mark Ridley-Thomas (8th District) then waxed poetically about the community remaining "eternally vigilant" against the adult entertainment industry, drawing applause from the (mostly) older, WASPy crowd in attendance. Finally, Richard Alacorn (7th District) expressed his feelings an amendment should be included to somehow group businesses which attract children (such as McDonald's) in with the other prohibited sites.

Amid the discussion, it was made clear that the City Council realized that much work was left to be done with the City Attorney's Office and L.A.P.D. advisors to eliminate any possible loopholes that (Beverly Hills attorney) John Weston could exploit later in court. Ironically, in the course of their debate, the window to such an opportunity may have been opened when Ms. Miscikowski discussed that potential violation of First Amendment rights if vendors of books and/or videos were besieged under this new code. Without rendering a legal opinion, based on their comments, it does stand to reason that ANY adult establishment that sells such materials as part of its business would enjoy a different level of legal recourse than those that do not. Furthermore, should the council be successful in passing this municipal code into law, such establishments could then force the city to draw up a map which would locate the specific areas where they COULD legally locate their businesses (lest the vendor's right to free trade be restricted).

Not surprisingly, the council members present voted unanimously to move forward with the measure.

Hunt for Miss Fantasy Island Starts
February 18, 1998

Dennis Morgan has announced that Fantasy Island will be holding Miss Fantasy Island bikini contests every Wednesday nights at 10pm starting today and will offer $500 (1st), $250 (2nd), $150 (3rd) and $100 (4th) cash prizes. The top 3 contestants each week qualify to compete for the $5000 cash purse at the semi-finals held on the last Saturday of each month.

The top 2 contestants from each semi-finals will advance to the final which will be in March of 1999. The grand prize is $10,000 in cash, a $5,000 gift certificate for plastic surgery, and a 2 year lease on a 1999 car.

Assemblyman "Hum" Baugh Tries Again
January 20, 1998

As was reported last year, Assemblyman Baugh has once again re-submitted bill AB 726 (anti-sex business bill) to the California Assembly. The last time, the bill died from under exposure, but apparently, in a last ditch effort to regain votes after being indicted for irregularities in campaign funding, Baugh, has tried to put through a similar anti-strip club bill.

This bill has several sections, including one that will allow the cities to enact laws that they see fit to control strip clubs and would likely lead to the 6 foot law for nude clubs, as it is already for alcohol clubs. Below is the summary provided along with the bill:

Provides that cities and counties are not pre-empted from enacting ordinances prohibiting the presentation of live nude performances at any adult or sexually oriented business.

The worst section of this bill is one that would prohibit tipping of dancers. If this doesn't kill the strip club business, I don't know what will. The summary of that section follows:

Permits ordinances which prohibit, in any adult or sexually oriented business, any patron from paying or giving a gratuity to any dancer or performer, or which prohibit the solicitation of such a gratuity by any performer or dancer.

Needless to say, if this bill passes, the lawsuits now pending in Anaheim that claim the local laws are conflicting with the State law would become moot. I'm sure that is the plan. These people just don't seem to understand that strip clubs will never go away. It will just go underground and into private clubs which would be more dangerous for dancers and customers alike.