Let me start off this column by saying straight up that I’m a big fan of NIMBY. If it ever comes to pass that an adult establishment, a “nudie bar,” were trying to set up shop in my neighborhood, I’d be furious. I’d be right up there at the public hearings with the grandmas, the clergy and everybody else proclaiming that this business does not belong in my community.
You can read off all of the reasons: plunging property values, community standards, the entire list.
I don’t have to worry about that, though. The likes of Joe Redner are not going to open an adult-use establishment near any residential communities in this county. So when Pinellas County Commissioner Susan Latvala accepted about $3,000 in campaign contributions from a few adult business owners, she was only being practical and tolerant of the rights of this industry to establish itself.
“It’s a legal business,” said Latvala in a recent telephone interview. Latvala faces, so far, Ray Brooks in the fall primaries for the District 4 race, which encompasses North Pinellas.
Look, most of the adult bars are lumped along a stretch of Ulmerton Road and U.S. 19, far away from neighborhoods.
Latvala admits to being ridiculed from her Republican associates, especially given that she was a member from 1992 to 2000 of the Pinellas School Board.
Adult businesses are, like it or not, a form of freedom of speech and the courts have ruled in their favor along those lines. Pinellas County’s ordinances require that dancers cover up a good part of their breasts and buttocks.
I don’t have to invoke the “holy and terrible” name of ACLU, but, honestly, the civil rights organization would be the first to run to the defense of the nightclubs’ owners.
So instead of going the route of Hillsborough County, which wants to restrict (eliminate?) adult businesses, including nightclub and magazine shops, Pinellas simply draws a line and says don’t pass it.
By the way, this is not an endorsement of Latvala over Brooks. I know just a smidge more than zip about him, that he’s involved in a mobile home park’s homeowners association.
I just respect Latvala’s stand, which, if other County Commission members agree, could let the commission focus on other issues.
Latvala said the commission has tweaked its adult use ordinances to the satisfaction of the courts. Her donors must agree, at the very least, that things could be far worse. A little skin here, a little skin there is one thing. An outright ban, like what some members of the Hillsborough County commission want, would kill their businesses, or cost them a bundle in legal fees to fight it.
So, we live with the bars and know that, legally, we’re not going to chase them out of town.
As Latvala said, “It’s not going to happen.”
Jim Harrington is the editor of the Largo Leader, Clearwater Citizen.
