BusinessTN

It’s a bad time to be a stripper in Tennessee as the roughly 40 strip clubs across the state start feeling the pressure of new regulations imposed on their businesses.

In Nashville, the recently created sexually oriented business licensing board—the unfortunately acronymed SOB—required all local strippers last December to appear for fingerprinting and background checks, upon which the dancers were recorded by a number in police ledgers. The fingerprinting measure, accompanied by a three-feet-from-patron rule that prohibits lap dancing, has already caused the Midtown strip club Vivid to close its doors.

Other municipalities in the state may soon follow Nashville’s lead, armed with the 1998 amendment to Tennessee Codes Annotated (title 7, chapter 51, part 14). Sponsored by former Democratic state senator from Lebanon Bob Rochelle, the explicit edict on adult-oriented establishments includes language that gives city halls the right to regulate strip clubs and other establishments as they see fit.

Already, the level of governmental anti-strip-club activity is staggering. The Memphis City Council recently placed a moratorium on all new permits allowing new clubs to open—a move intended to give the city time to reconsider its current regulations on strip club locations. In December, the Knoxville City Council passed a revised definition of what constitutes an adult business and placed a 90-day moratorium on all new businesses. It follows council action last May enhancing regulation of the licensing, hours of operation, location and practices of adult entertainment businesses. Knox County passed similar new regulations in August.

As Tennessee municipalities pass new regulations, the adult entertainment industry in not willing to give up without a fight. The recently formed Tennessee Cabaret Association, for the first time in the state’s history, will send a lobbyist to the Capitol Hill to represent the interests of strip club owners, their exotic dancers and affiliated staff.

“It’s a legal business that [lawmakers] are trying to criminalize,” says Tracy O’Neill, who has formed the Ashland City-based association, calling the recent regulations in Nashville troublesome. “The patron barrier—this is where they make their money. In my research, I am yet to find the reason for that rule, which has caused those girls who make $1,200 to $1,500 a week to leave Nashville for cities where there is less B.S.”

O’Neill is not new to the lobbying profession. She arrived to her current gig after five years spent opposing matters like the “chip and mill” bill on behalf of the Tennessee Forestry Association. Transitioning from pulp and milling disputes to representing adult entertainers was a result of careful deliberation. Last year, O’Neill registered with Nashville Metro Council to represent Nashville club Déjà Vu. The club was in trouble after losing a lengthy court battle last April when U.S. District Court Judge Todd Campbell lifted an injunction against a 1998 Metro ordinance that, along with prohibiting lap dancing in the city, created a licensing board for adult businesses and their employees.

When asked about the new association’s legislative agenda, O’Neill responds that she is going to be focusing “more on defense than offense” but opening a dialog with lawmakers would be a good start. They need to know, she says, that closing down strip clubs takes away not just the livelihood of the dancers, but economic development dollars out of the state’s coffers. For example, adult entertainment businesses in Fulton County, Ga., paid $330 million in taxes last year, O’Neill says.

One dancer who was employed by Vivid and now drives to Lexington, Ky., to do her job, objects to what she calls a double standard in the recent legislative onslaught on strip clubs.

“They equate us with prostitution, which is offensive,” says Chloe, a Vanderbilt University graduate and a mother of two, who asked that her stage name be used in this article. “There is no intercourse at gentleman’s clubs, no sexual contact. This legislation of morality is applied to cabarets, but Nashville still has swingers clubs that operate legally.”

Swingers clubs are places where members pay for the opportunity to have sex with other people. Women are usually admitted for free. Nashville has two swingers clubs: Menages and Tennessee Swingers. Neither has been subject to fingerprinting or other policing measures.

“This is an example of legislating on assumption. No council member would admit to coming to see what goes on at strip clubs,” Chloe says.

Unfortunately for all the Chloes, Bambis and Vanessas out there, as well as for any lobbyist wishing to represent them, there is little urgency on Capitol Hill for recognizing the concerns of the adult entertainment industry. Steve Cohen (D-Memphis) says the strip club legislation is far from occupying a prominent place in the minds of Tennessee’s legislators, who have been preoccupied with ethical and budgetary issues. “I don’t think it’s very high,” he says of the profile of the Tennessee Cabaret Association. For an industry in the business of making jaws drop and people pay attention, such a low profile portends an uphill battle to get its concerns addressed.