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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2009 > November > 07 > Entry
Editorial: 2nd regs on strippers were unneeded
Last week’s election, as it applied to Harrison Twp., brought back into the headlines a sexy statewide flap from 2007 — the one that saw strippers going to Columbus to lobby elected officials.
To refresh memories: A Cincinnati-based group of morality police called Citizens for Community Values was pushing a bill to regulate strip clubs. This despite the fact that in the previous year the legislature had already acted on the problem at hand.
That problem was that the clubs had located in townships because townships didn’t have the power that cities had to restrict them.
In 2006, the legislature gave townships that power, along with the right to go to the state attorney general for help in drafting regulations in this constitutionally complicated realm.
It turned out, however, that the townships generally weren’t taking the state up on its grant of authority or offers of help. So Citizens for Community Values moved to pass restrictions that would apply everyplace.
In an important sense, that went in exactly the opposite direction from 2006. Instead of increasing the power of local governments, the new law set up a one-size-fits-all standard.
The alleged conservative interest in limiting big government and keeping power close to the people was, shall we say, set aside for the moment.
Specifically, what the 2007 act did was ban stripping after midnight and ban contact between dancers and customers.
The whole thing was in the headlines for much of the year, with various sides threatening to go to the ballot.
Citizens for Community Values leader Phil Burress insisted that his effort was not about policing morality. He said his cause was the control of crime in the strip club neighborhoods. He insisted that the clubs breed crime.
If that were often true, however, one might expect that the pressure for a new law would come from the townships. But it came from Citizens for Community Values and whatever public opinion that organization could mobilize.
The 2007 law is not being enforced in Harrison, Miami and Washington townships. Township officials say the law is being challenged in court, and they don’t want to get sued.
Meanwhile, public and local government demand for action is hard to detect. In Harrison Twp. this fall, a candidate for township trustee, Steve Adams, pushed for harder action by the board of trustees. He, too, insisted that he wasn’t trying to legislate morality. He said it’s a zoning issue, a matter of where these businesses should be. He lost the election.
As for crime, Montgomery County Sheriff’s Capt. Jeff Papanek, commander for Harrison Twp., said the strip clubs cause no more problems than bars. There are some rowdy customers, and, yes, the occasional prostitution arrest inside the bars.
In past times, when there were many more sex-oriented businesses — including massage parlors — there were more complaints. The possibility of trouble shouldn’t be laughed off.
But the right approach to that possibility was to give the townships the power to enact their own laws.
Instead, in 2007 the political activists did their thing, satisfying their contributors, getting a lot of attention, getting the politicians to cave to their bogus arguments, and giving the news media a good time writing about strippers going to Columbus.
The upshot is that the good that might, at least theoretically, have been done by the sensible 2006 law has been put on hold because of concerns about the constitutionality of the unnecessary 2007 law.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Law Enforcement and Public Safety, Local Business, Martin Gottlieb, Religion and Faith, Suburban Communities
Comments
By jon
November 7, 2009 3:52 PM | Link to this
Do members of these “morality” groups understand there are more important things to do with there time and resources.
By Leon Harrison
November 7, 2009 7:21 PM | Link to this
Who cares about the nanny instigators and Fuddy Duddy Christian masturbators? As long as these sexy young females spread their thighs, for us nice white guys, the fun never dies!