Unfair Park from p3 the rare bad incidents that happen there. “You don’t hear headlines about how fun it was or whatever,” she said. “It’s usually publicized for the very few things that happened in the parking lot; they don’t even happen inside.” Colunga lives in Dallas with her boyfriend Hunter, who’s the father of her child. He used to be homeless, but thanks to her job, Colunga could afford to take him and his family off the street; before long, his sister and mom were able to move out on their own. On other occasions, Colunga said, she helped two dancers who were escaping abuse by offering them shelter. “I didn’t have to rely on anybody else,” she explained, “so I was able to bring home whoever I wanted to help and have them stay for as long as I wanted them there or they needed.” Many people have misconceptions about what it’s like to work at a club as a dancer, Colunga said. Some might picture a catty “mean girls” environment, but it’s more like being in a sorority with sisters who joke around with one another. The bouncers often act like protective big brothers, assisting the dancers whenever they’re caught in the occasional skeevy scenario. Managers, bartenders, waitresses, cooks and valets are often on the payroll, too. If it survives a challenge in court, the ordinance would push Colunga and many others back into lower-paying gigs with more restrictive hours. “A lot of girls would go to the clubs that close at 2, of course, and then you’re going to have this excess of workers who don’t have any jobs,” she said. “There’s going to be a waiting list to get into every club that’s going to be closing before 2, and it’s going to be very difficult because there are a lot of women. “There’s like 100-plus dancers that’ll be dancing on a Friday or a Saturday night,” she continued. “That’s a lot of women out of work, especially at XTC.” Discussions about imposing hours of operation on the businesses were sparked during a Quality of Life, Arts and Culture Committee meeting in November. The City Council committee was discussing Texas’ Senate Bill 315, which went into effect immediately when Gov. Gregg Abbott signed it in May. The bill raised the age requirement in Texas for employees at SOBs from 18 to 21, causing some to be laid off in the middle of their shifts. The city wanted to update its code to reflect the new age requirement. That’s when Adam Bazaldua, chair of the committee, suggested imposing hours of operations on the SOBs, citing similar restrictions in other cities. Plano, for example, requires the businesses to close between 2 a.m. and 10 a.m. Fort Worth has similar restrictions, but makes exceptions on the weekends and for SOBs with a “food establishment permit.” Dallas doesn’t have any such restrictions. Kristie Smith, who lives in Bazaldua’s 44 district, said the Tiger Cabaret is located near her home. She said it’s open until 5 a.m. and lets patrons bring their own alcohol. She said crime seems to be a problem in the club’s parking lot, so she can understand wanting to impose more restrictions. Bazaldua and others who back these regulations in Dallas say it’s about stomping out crime, not sex work. “This is to address being able to better regulate hours of operation for businesses that we have seen have criminal activity and where it’s been most prominent and there’s data to support that with the presentation,” Bazaldua said in November. But throughout these discussions, City Council member Omar Narvaez has said he wants to make sure they’re not victimizing the businesses and the people they employ. Narvaez’s district is home to a majority of the city’s SOBs. “We cannot be targeting a business simply for our moral issues or what we think is an easy win when it comes to doing something as a city,” Narvaez said. “I just want to make sure that’s clear and make sure the sex workers out there know that you have an advocate. I know it’s probably not the most popular side to be on, but these folks should be treated with dignity, respect and not shamed in any way, shape or form.” The committee later held a public hearing on the change and voted to bring it back for consideration. At the public hearing, people like Vikkie Martin, executive director of the Ferguson Road Initiative, turned out in support of the restrictions, calling SOBs “crime magnets and detriments to vulnerable neighborhoods.” But people in the industry argue that the proposed restrictions are unnecessary and will get the city sued. Michael Ocello with the Dallas Association of Club Executives, spoke about efforts they take to combat sex trafficking. A company called BioVerify collects fingerprints and conducts background checks on employees at adult night clubs in Dallas. Brendan Berrells, the general manager, explained that employees must have a valid identification card and that their fingerprints are submitted to the Texas Department of Public Safety, which provides the applicant’s arrest, prosecution and conviction history. “If someone is under 21 years of age, they cannot work,” Berrells said. “If this report has a recent prostitution [charge], they cannot work. And if anyone has a conviction for any kind of sex crime involving children, they cannot work.” In 2003, Roger Albright helped create the Dallas Association of Club Executives. Albright said the city’s SOBs ordinance hasn’t worked since it was introduced 35 years ago. “For the first 17 years, the city did nothing but lose. Nobody moved. Everybody stayed where they were. All the SOBs remained,” he said during the November public hearing. Citing similar measures in other cities, Dallas began regulating SOBs in 1986. The city enacted a chapter in its code “to promote the health, safety, morals, and general welfare of the citizens of the city, and to establish reasonable and uniform regulations to prevent the continued concentration of [sexually oriented businesses] within the city.” This created zoning restrictions that required SOBs to be at least 1,000 feet away from each other and to be the same distance from churches, schools, residential areas and parks. Under the 1986 city code, SOBs were defined as “an adult arcade, adult bookstore or adult video store, adult cabaret, adult motel, adult motion picture theater, adult theater, escort agency, nude model studio, or sexual encounter center.” Nudity and “the state of nudity” were also defined in the code as “appearance of a bare buttock, anus, male genitals, female genitals or female breast.” Jacob Vaughn Opponents of the Dallas City Council’s effort to restrict operating hours at sexually oriented businesses protested before the vote. These new regulations would have forced many SOBs to relocate, which they didn’t want to do. So, the businesses adapted, providing “simulated nudity” at their establishments. Dancers would wear bikini bottoms and flesh-colored pasties. The simulated nudity kept the businesses eligible for dance hall licenses, which kept them from having to relocate. But then Dallas created a new class of dance hall, Class D, which provided definitions for semi-nudity and simulated nudity while including zoning restrictions that would have forced some of the businesses to move. This back and forth between the city and the businesses never really ended. It’s resulted in a few lawsuits. In 1996, a district court sided with the SOBs, saying the new definitions for nudity, semi-nudity and simulated nudity violated the First Amendment. Later that year, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision. The following year, Baby Dolls Topless Saloons Inc. was denied an SOB license because of its location. If it wanted the license, the club would have had to move elsewhere. But instead of moving, Baby Dolls and 11 other SOBs, later called the “Topless Twelve,” took Dallas to court. The SOBs ultimately lost that battle in 2002 when the courts ruled that Dallas’ regulations were constitutional. Over the years, Dallas has shifted its approach, stepping away from restrictions based on content and focusing more on restrictions based on the alleged secondary effects of the industry, such as crime. Still, more legal battles followed. >> p6 MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2014 FEBRUARY 3–9, 2022 DALLAS OBSERVER DALLAS OBSERVER | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | MOVIES | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | SCHUTZE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS dallasobserver.comdallasobserver.com
