JOHNS CREEK: Legal fight with adult business costly, ongoing

By Doug Nurse
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, January 04, 2009

To take on its lone adult business, Johns Creek hired a legal sharpshooter who drafted a no-loophole ordinance that made the store clean up its act. Ultimately the store, the Love Shack, closed.
But the fight wasn’t cheap. And it’s not over.
Since hiring attorney Scott Bergthold of Chattanooga in 2006, the city has paid him $238,000, at $250 an hour. City Attorney Bill Riley is paid $150 an hour for litigation. The city typically budgets $700,000 or so a year for legal expenses. It has paid another firm about $61,100 in Love Shack litigation fees.
Mayor Mike Bodker makes no apologies for the expense.
“We have laws on the books that say this business, because it’s an adult business, cannot operate in this zoning district,” Bodker said. “Short of repealing that law, we should enforce it.”
The owner of the Love Shack, John Cornetta, is fighting the city in Superior Court, the state Supreme Court and a federal appellate court. So far, the city has mostly prevailed. But three related cases linger in the courts.
Bergthold, who has a national anti-adult-business legal practice, said he brings experience and expertise to a field that is constantly changing and that can be extremely tricky to navigate because of its constitutional issues.
“We’ve seen a lot of the strategies and tactics and legal theories that have been advanced against municipal ordinances across the country,” he said. “We see industry tactics other lawyers wouldn’t see unless they practiced it extensively.”
Cornetta sounded incredulous upon hearing the price tag for the legal fight against him.
“Are you kidding?” he asked. He estimated he has spent $110,000 on legal fees. “That’s shocking. But then they did hire the biggest Bible-thumper money could buy.”
Bergthold’s clients range from Bartow County to Clark County, Nev. —- home to Las Vegas —- from Daytona Beach, Fla., to Pasadena, Calif., and points in between.
Another reason the bill is so high, Bodker said, is because there are three related cases in various stages of trial.
Chuck Thompson, executive director of the International Municipal Lawyers Association, said adult businesses try to delay a final decision because in the meantime, they get to stay open and make money.
Thompson said he wasn’t surprised at the $238,000 bill.
“That sounds pretty typical,” he said. “It’s an expensive proposition. It’s very time-intensive.”
Bergthold has been advising the city since its birth on Dec. 1, 2006. In the first hour of the city’s first City Council meeting, Bergthold gave a briefing on how to respond to the Love Shack, which had opened a few days earlier.
Technically, the battle was over zoning. The city maintained the Love Shack was an adult business in an area not zoned for adult businesses. The city argued the Love Shack needed to close or clean up its act.
Bergthold’s strategy was to close every loophole that adult businesses had ever used.
He drafted an ordinance that defined adult businesses by percentage and volume, sales, and floor space for adult material.
Many residents wanted the Love Shack to move, or better yet to close. A town hall meeting soon after the city was launched drew more than 1,000 people. The store was shuttered in September.
Kim Tye, a Johns Creek resident and opponent of the Love Shack, said Bergthold has been worth the money.
“I hated it so much,” she said. “It could have set a precedent. If we let him [Cornetta] get away with it, then there wouldn’t have been any recourse for any other type of things. It’s a little expensive, but it was something that had to be done.”
Sharon Simon, 39, echoed Tye.
“I think it was money well spent,” she said. “It’s in the face of our children. The $238,000 doesn’t bother me a bit.”

THE RIGHT TO OFFER NUDE DANCING'? Topless bar applicants sue city of Destin

November 25, 2008 - 1:46 PM

Dusty Ricketts
Florida Freedom Newspapers

The Oasis of Destin has sued the city claiming that adult entertainment ordinances violate the bar's First Amendment rights.

The action was filed by the bar located on Mountain Drive and Trident-Operations LLC, a company that the Oasis has entered into a management agreement with to run the bar.
"The plaintiffs wish to engage in activities protected under the First Amendment, i.e., offering nude dance entertainment," the lawsuit says.

The city's rules governing such establishments "has deprived the plaintiffs of the right to offer nude-dance entertainment," the lawsuit further states. "For these reasons the plaintiffs are entitled to declaratory and permanent injunctive relief barring the City from enforcing these ordinances ..."

"We approached (the city), made a case for why the ordinances are not valid and then applied for a business license and were then promptly turned down," said Cary Wiggins, a former Niceville resident now practicing law at the Atlanta-based law firm of Cook, Youngelson & Wiggins. "There's really nothing left to do. If the ordinances aren't valid, there's really no sense in working with them."

Destin attorney Jerry Miller did not return messages seeking comment on the lawsuit.

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To read the entire lawsuit, click here.

THE ANATOMY OF A TOPLESS BAR LAWSUIT

Business owner: Erotic dancing ‘viable’ in Destin
November 29, 2008 - 10:13 AM
William Hatfield

A businessman who wants to become the first topless bar owner in Destin says it is “absolutely a business just like anything else.”

“Well, maybe not like anything else,” said Terry Stephenson, who is operating the Oasis on Mountain Drive. “But if the biggest issue you have to deal with is that an adult, 21 and over, wants to go to a club, watch girls dance, and have a drink … Surely there are other big issues to deal with than what an adult does in his spare time.”

Stephenson and his attorneys recently filed a First Amendment lawsuit in federal court alleging that the city of Destin is infringing on the bar’s right “to offer nude-dance entertainment.”

“Ultimately, I feel like the erotic dancing format is a commercially viable situation in Destin. So that’s pretty much what I’m gonna pursue,” he said.

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To read the entire lawsuit, click here.

The odd crowd slip in for a bit of adult entertainment

The Times

November 26, 2008

Ann Treneman: Parliamentary Sketch

Don’t get me wrong but I don’t think I’ve ever seen Peter Stringfellow when he wasn’t wearing a thong. But that was in the papers, of course, not in the flesh (so to speak). It was still a bit of a shock to see Mr Stringfellow wearing a pinstripe suit when he came to Westminster yesterday. Still, all else about him was as expected: the grey-blond hair that crept over the collar, the tinted shades, the aura of loucheness that clung to him like a starlet on a sugar-daddy’s arm.

The Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s session on lap dancing had attracted an odd crowd. There was Mr Stringfellow, a former dancer named Nadine Stravonia de Montagnac, and a beautiful woman who went by the name of Solitaire. She gave me her card that showed her, head thrown to one side, dark hair cascading, in a dress split to the thigh and beyond. Did she have a last name? “I just go by Solitaire,” she said sultrily with an enigmatic smile as if she were in a Bond movie or something.

First up was Nadine Stravonia de Montagnac (we never did get to the bottom of that name) and a woman from a group called Object who, not surprisingly, objected to just about everything. “We should call a spade a spade,” said Nadine, who had a permanent pout about her face. She’d been a dancer of eight years and thought the clubs should be classified as “sex encounter establishments” and licensed as such....read more

Deputies Searching For Adult-Entertainment Venue Bandit

November 26, 2008 FOX 34 Sheriff's deputies are searching for the bandit who robbed an adult-entertainment venue. The Fantasy Theater on Slaton Highway was targeted by a gun-wielding robber who walked in and demanded cash at about 4:00 a.m. Wednesday morning. The clerk says the man was wearing a brown stocking over his head and black gloves. The suspect is described as Hispanic, about 5'6", and weighs about 200 pounds. According to a witness, the getaway car is a green Pontiac Grand Am....read more

Disney Site Recommends 'New York's Last Grindhouse' For Kids

November 23, 2008
NYPOST.COM

The Fair Theatre in East Elmhurst, Queens is "good-for-kids'' as young as infants, insists a page on Disneyfamilytravel.com, which includes it on a long list of NYC tourist attractions like Rockefeller Center and Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The wacky things you come up with on a Google search! I guess they didn't read my 2007 article on the 67-year-old Fair, which I dubbed "New York's last grindhouse.'' I reported that the theatre's main business was showing gay male porn, complete with private booths, though it offers other types of movies -- currently, Bollywood fare -- to comply with New York City's 60/40 adult business law. Or maybe a bored, gay employee at Disney Family Travel put it on the list as a joke...SEE THE ARTICLE

Destin to review 'adult entertainment' ordinances

November 17, 2008

Fraser Sherman

Now that Destin has received its first request in at least a decade to open a topless bar, the city must review the rules governing "adult entertainment," City Councilor Dewey Destin says.

“We probably need to review those to bring them up to snuff on what the current status of the law is," the councilor said at Monday's council meeting. The council endorsed the idea unanimously.

Rocky Griffith, who owns the Oasis in Destin/Thai Delights property on Mountain Drive, has applied for a business license to open a topless bar there. City officials say the zoning at that spot doesn't allow adult entertainment, though Griffith could request a zoning change.

Section 3-2 of Destin's ordinances, which governs adult entertainment, is 20 years old. It prohibits nudity in bars, night clubs and any business "which sells alcoholic beverages for consumption on the premises." The ban includes showing the female breast "below the top of the areola" and any exposure of genitals or buttocks.

City Manager Greg Kisela said the city would review the rules and report back.

For a play-by-play from Monday night's meeting, click here.

Topless bar application puts Destin in uncharted territory

November 15, 2008
Fraser Sherman

In the 10 years he’s been at Destin City Hall, nobody has proposed opening a topless bar in town, Deputy City Manager John Paton says.

That’s no longer the case. Ricky Griffith, who owns the Oasis and Thai Delights property on Mountain Drive, recently filed a business-license application to turn the Oasis into a topless bar, but it’s an idea that isn’t finding many supporters.

“The board hasn’t discussed it and rarely takes specific positions on individual businesses,” President/CEO Shane Moody of the Destin Area Chamber of Commerce told The Log, “but with us trying to turn the harbor into a destination and festive marketplace for families, a strip club is not what we want to see there.”

Thursday afternoon, four women working at Harmon Insurance and Bonding, in the Destin Business Center next to Griffith’s property, said to put them down as “Four no’s ... totally against.”

A half-dozen men playing pool at Oasis that afternoon declined to answer The Log’s questions.

“I’m not going there,” one of them said.

Still, City Manager Greg Kisela said, it’s not surprising Griffith has applied: “If it’s commercially viable you’re going to have adult entertainment wanting to be here ... We’ve got 40 to 60,000 tourists during the 100 days of summer.”

Community Development Director Ken Gallander said the Commercial Trades and Services zoning on the north side of Mountain doesn’t allow for topless waitresses. The only zoning in Destin that would allow them is Industrial, which is found in two areas off Airport Road.
If the city turns down Griffith’s application over the zoning, he has the option to appeal to the Board of Adjustments, and to take a refusal to circuit court. Alternatively, he could ask the council to rezone his land to Industrial or to redefine Commercial Trades and Services.

Griffith signed the business-license application, but he told The Log that the topless bar is his lessee’s idea.

Norma Calhoun, the former manager of the Oasis, told The Log that Terry Stephenson of the Georgia strip club Pin-ups, had leased the property. The Log wasn’t able to reach Stephenson for confirmation or comment.