6 April 30 - MAy 6, 2026 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents It appears to be an endless cycle: Bonds, passed on multi-year cycles, attempt to fix up the city’s highest-priority facilities. But by the time those projects are completed, others have fallen into bad shape. In developing her list of requests for Harry Stone, Cadena came across a draft of a 2015 area plan for Casa View. She was sur- prised to see that the decade-old analysis of Harry Stone Park, which asked for a dog park, better playground equipment and traf- fic calming, was full of the same requests she’s hearing from her neighbors now. “The neighborhood still wants the same stuff, 10 years later,” she said. “It really is such a center for all of us to come together.” Cadena and Ramirez have managed to fix a few patchwork problems through 311 re- quests, and they’re communicating with their City Council member, Jesse Moreno, to schedule a walkthrough of the play- ground. They said they’re hoping to get some concrete goalposts from the represen- tative: What will it take to get someone to care about the Harry Stone playground? Moreno’s office did not respond to the Observer’s request for comment. “I want to show that you can be success- ful in making a difference in this commu- nity,” Ramirez said. “We want to put pressure on the city to take us seriously.” ▼ POLICE ‘SCORCHING HOT PLAY PARTY’ POLICE DETAIN DOZENS IN RAID ON DALLAS ‘SEX PARTY’ AMID HARRY HINES CRACKDOWN. BY EMMA RUBY D allas Police detained dozens of men on April 17, ultimately arresting two, after serving a search warrant at a warehouse on Manana Drive and discover- ing a “scorching hot play party” (as de- scribed by the event organizers) underway. According to police, the bust was part of the department’s Safe Streets Initiative that has targeted sexually oriented businesses operating improperly in the area around Harry Hines Boulevard. The warehouse that police raided, identified by the Dallas Voice as the LGBTQ+ venue Spayse Studios, sits just off Harry Hines and brands itself as a venue for everything from “birthday parties, to anniversaries, to adult kink parties.” Police say organizers failed to get a sexu- ally oriented business license before Friday’s event, which involved patrons paying a cover fee of $35 “to enter the business to en- gage in sexual contact.” The party was branded as a “CumUnion” event, part of a series of sexually oriented parties hosted across the country for gay men. A note on the event’s website states that “due to cir- cumstances outside of our control,” the eve- ning portion of the party was canceled. Forty-eight individuals were initially de- tained when police arrived at the warehouse around noon, and police seized 27 grams of marijuana, 671 grams of psilocybin mush- rooms and 11,034.7 grams of THC hash oil. “Additionally, Vice Detectives recovered more than $11,000 in currency, multiple computers, hard drives and other electron- ics, as well as pleasure devices and a cargo van believed to be used in the production of pornography,” police said in a statement. Two men who police say organized the party now face charges. Israel Luna, the owner of Spayse Studios, was charged with possession of a controlled substance over 400 grams, a first-degree fel- ony; promotion of prostitution, a third-de- gree felony; possession of marijuana between 4 ounces and 5 pounds, a state jail felony; and operating a sexually oriented business without a license, a Class A misde- meanor. Marc Tuton was also charged with operating a sexually oriented business with- out a license, police said. In February, Dallas Police raided the Paris Adult Bookstore one mile north of Spayse Studios as part of a crackdown on sexually oriented businesses, which the city has been trying to better manage for years, before ordinances got tied up in litigation. The nearby Pandora’s Men’s Club, which police say facilitated prostitution and drug sales, was also shuttered, and this April, Dal- las’ permit and license appeals board de- clined to reinstate the club’s dance hall license and late-hours permit. Although police see Friday’s raid as a part of that series of crackdowns, it can be noted that the raid brings to the surface a history of police targeting LGBTQ+ spaces through- out Dallas. According to the Dallas Voice, “at least two or three guys had a panic attack” after it was announced that police were on the warehouses’ premises on Friday. On social media, attendees have ex- pressed feeling “a little freaked out” by the threat of legal issues, adding that it felt like “we were harassed by the Dallas police de- partment in a gay safe space.” In a since-de- leted Reddit post, one user speculated that DPD could have used drones to record the license plates of party attendees — a claim reminiscent of the 1970s when police pub- lished the license plate numbers of cars parked outside of known gay bars. Archives show that the Dallas Times Herald and Dallas Morning News regularly covered instances of DPD targeting of LGBTQ+ estab- lishments at that time, when homosexual con- duct was outlawed. In 2010, a police raid at a gay bathhouse in Deep Ellum resulted in 11 men being charged with public lewdness. Police, though, have stated that the raid was a part of a broader commitment “to en- forcing all laws and ordinances related to prostitution, human trafficking and sexual exploitation to keep everyone safe in Dallas.” ▼ LIBRARIES OUT OF THE BOX, ON THE SHELVES CITY SEEKS NEW SOLUTIONS TO PREVENT PUBLIC LIBRARY CLOSURES. BY AUSTIN WOOD F our libraries may be safe after Dallas City Council members directed li- brary staff to pursue a proposal to keep all neighborhood branches open. In January, library staff announced a plan to close the Oak Lawn, Skyline, Arcadia Park and Renner-Frankford branch libraries as part of a shift to a regional model centered on expanded offerings at new flagship branches. At a meeting of the Quality of Life, Arts and Culture Committee, council members pushed back on the plans and asked Dallas Public Library Director Manya Shorr to bring back proposals to keep all branches open. Shorr presented those options to the com- mittee last week, with council members al- most entirely supporting a proposal to pursue the creation of flagship branches while keep- ing all 28 neighborhood libraries open. “Shame on us if we can’t find the $2 mil- lion your department needs to keep operat- ing,” council member Chad West told Shorr, who also pointed out that the city is expected to have a $5.4 billion budget next year. Flagships would be open for longer hours and offer expanded programming, including GED courses, citizenship classes and Eng- lish-language learning programs. “The flagship models, I think, are inter- esting, but my primary concern is keeping the branches intact,” West said. The library system has been asked to iden- tify $2.6 million in savings ahead of the next fiscal year, up from $1.9 million in cuts made last year. Dallas officials are expecting an- other difficult budgetary cycle, with state-im- posed caps on tax revenue and required payments to the beleaguered police and fire pension system likely to constrain resources. Shorr’s presentation included results from a Friends of the Dallas Public Library survey that showed nearly 74% of respon- dents opposed the closures. “We have to entertain and explore differ- ent ways to be efficient and run our govern- ment in ways that cut dollars and sometimes services,” Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Gay Don- nell Willis said at the meeting. “It just de- pends on what the equation is each year, and there are a lot of external factors, but the more this has been coming before us, the more I’m arriving at a place where we need to find this money.” Critics of the plan have stressed the im- portance of the branches selected for clo- sure and questioned the criteria used to determine which libraries would be phased out under a regional model. The plan pre- sented in January did not include informa- tion on branches’ proximity to city resources, cultural significance or other fac- tors such as voting center utilization. According to Dallas County elections data, more early votes were cast at the Oak Lawn library during the March primary races than at all but two other voting centers in the county. The presentation delivered by staff in- cluded subjective information on some of the libraries’ importance to their communi- ties. It also included proposals to maximize revenue opportunities at the library. Getting Creative Staff’s plan included proposals raising fees for room rentals, charging for central library parking or notary services and creating passport offices in libraries to raise revenue. Shorr estimated the service could bring in approximately $100,000 annually, but also conceded that none of the options would necessarily raise $2.6 million. “The one that I think will bring in the most amount of money for the general fund would be potential passport offices, espe- cially if we can run two, three or four of them around the city,” Shorr said. “I know libraries that bring in hundreds of thou- sands of dollars a year with passport run- ning passport offices.” Council member Adam Bazaldua ex- pressed interest in revenue-collecting op- portunities beyond those presented by Shorr and asked the director to go a step further. “I think that it’s really inside the box. I was thinking much more of outside the box,” Bazaldua said. “These are very nomi- nal. I think that even if we maximize every single revenue potential that you’ve listed here, we’re not hitting that $2.6 million. And so I’m thinking more about naming-rights opportunities, sponsorship opportunities, even lease opportunities for coffee shops.” Bazaldua also questioned why money from the sale of the Skillman Southwestern Branch Library, which closed in 2025 and netted the city $3.3 million at auction, could not be used to close gaps in the system’s budget. Dallas Chief Financial Officer Jack Ireland explained that profits from the sale of city- owned properties are placed in a fund dedi- cated to citywide deferred maintenance Adobe Stock Public libraries are shifting to a regional model centered on flagship branches. Unfair Park from p4
