On the SOB battle

Interesting article on the ongoing city-versus-SOB battle, which is still pending in the courts after the latest reprieve for the SOBs. I think these paragraphs get at one of the main things that bugs me about this.

For a decade, however, City Hall has been at war with businesses catering to sexual desires, be it upscale businesses such as the Men's Club or seedy storefront massage parlors. Houston has spent more than $1 million in legal bills defending its sexually oriented business ordinance.

A recent court-ordered stay has stalled enforcement pending an appeal, to be heard later this summer, but Mayor Bill White has shown no inclination to compromise. More than once he has said he would not mind seeing them all close, regardless of the cost in lost tax revenue and jobs.

"We're not eliminating somebody's ability to have a bar or restaurant," White said. "There are plenty of places that make money without a sexual orientation."

As for [dancer Ivy] Taylor's particular situation, White suggested that she find a new line of work.

"There's bound to be a better way to address the challenges of a young mother trying to take care of a child and make ends meet than by having businesses that have her take off all her clothes and dance in front of strangers," White said.

That just strikes me as excessively paternalistic. Ivy Taylor is an adult, and topless dancing is a legal activity. Far as I'm concerned, that should be the end of the discussion. I can understand the neighborhood protection arguments for the stricter SOB laws, even if I don't agree with them, but why should it be the city of Houston's concern what this woman does for a living? And what happens if we succeed in driving all the topless clubs out of town? Will we go after the Hooters girls next? What other ways of making a living will meet with official disapproval?

To many, the mayor's disapproving tone seems at odds with Houston's character, business climate and unzoned cityscape, not to mention its reputation as a flesh-friendly destination. Adult cabarets, as they prefer to be known, may not be to everyone's taste, but they are well-established and widely known. When major conventions or sporting events come to town, the clubs' business booms. Convention recruiters won't talk about the ordinance on the record, but privately they acknowledge that it does them no favors.

"Everything in a major city is of interest to someone," one of them said. "Or a lot of someones."

[...]

"It's at odds with public attitudes, in fact," said Rice University sociology professor Stephen Klineberg, who has tracked local opinions in his annual Houston Area Survey for 25 years. "When you ask people about individual freedoms, they are very strongly in favor of allowing people to do things that they would not necessarily do themselves. That's what makes it a modern and progressive city instead of a traditionalist city."

The whole thing is weird, isn't it? Even though there isn't going to be any real pro-SOB faction, I'd still like to see some polling on this issue. My belief, which I have no way of knowing is right or not, is that there just isn't that much public fervor behind this push. Folks may not care for the SOBs (or at least, they may not admit to it - I mean, someone must be going to them now, and it ain't just out-of-towners), but I don't think they really want to see them wiped out. Maybe I'm wrong about that, I just don't know.

Of course, there is an important difference between public opinion and what Klineberg calls "politically effective" opinion. In the mid-1990s, when City Council members Helen Huey and Jew Don Boney pushed for a revision of the existing ordinance, there was pressure from neighborhood associations alarmed by the growing number of smaller sexually oriented businesses, especially the massage parlors, spas and nude "tanning" salons.

"Folks out here in the neighborhoods were concerned about the proliferation of businesses," said Huey, who left the council at the end of 1997. "They were sprouting up here, there and everywhere. It wasn't just one type of business."

The majority of the topless clubs were located on major commercial thoroughfares. The Men's Club, perhaps the city's best-known and most upscale, was just a block away from the Galleria. The smaller businesses moved in anywhere their owners sniffed an opportunity, which sometimes put them in converted houses or small commercial settings much closer to residences.

David Fairchild, president of the Men's Club of Houston's parent company, is still angry that his business was lumped in with seamier ones that do not employ many people or contribute millions of dollars in tax revenue. An economist at Georgia State University in Atlanta, a city which has a comparable number of strip clubs, several years ago estimated the overall local impact at $200 million to $240 million, well over what he estimated was the impact of the city's three major professional sports teams.

"These tanning salons and modeling studios that set up shop overnight in a strip center with no investment and sometimes with no permit -- the city has chosen not to make any distinction between adult cabarets and these kinds of businesses," Fairchild said. "The city should acknowledge the fact that the adult cabarets are different and license them separately."

I have to say, I agree with Fairchild. I think this matter would have been settled back in 1997 had that approach been taken in the first place. It's still not too late, but given the Mayor's attitude, I don't see any chance of that happening. It's up to the courts. We'll see what the final say is.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on July 09, 2007 to Local politics