4 December 7 - 13, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents tomers and offered sexual acts for money. Last February, Plano Police arrested an employee at Tennyson Wellness Center for engaging in prostitution there. The next month, the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation conducted an inspection on the place and found it had not been main- taining the required state records. Finger condoms were also found on the premises during the inspection. Months later, in Sep- tember, another employee was charged with indecent assault and arrested at Tennyson Wellness Center. The Observer called the Tennyson Well- ness Center for a comment from the owner, but someone claiming to be an employee an- swered the phone and said the owner was not there. However, NBCDFW was able to speak to the owner, Diana Zhang, who blamed the illicit activity on employees. She told the news station that all the employees had to sign agreements when they were hired that said they would not offer sex acts at work. She said employees “made mistakes.” This isn’t Plano’s first run-in with prosti- tution-related problems. Earlier this year, Plano and Dallas police discovered a prosti- tution ring operating out of a short-term rental and arrested 23 people who were in- volved, according to The Dallas Morning News. The city of Dallas has also had its own problems with illicit massage parlors. Be- tween 2019 and 2022, the Dallas Police De- partment arrested 38 people and provided resources to 50 victims through its investi- gations into massage businesses. While Plano is taking only civil action against the Tennyson Wellness Center, offi- cials say arrests have been made at several other businesses this year for sexual offenses. The city says it won’t hesitate to take similar civil action against these establishments. ▼ SPORTS PRESIDENT SHARK IS MARK CUBAN SELLING THE DALLAS MAVERICKS TO RUN FOR HIGHER OFFICE? BY SIMONE CARTER M ark Cuban is going through changes. The 65-year-old billionaire and NBA franchise owner recently an- nounced that he’d be ditching his Shark Tank co-hosting gig after Season 16. And, as if that weren’t a big enough headline, news broke last week that Cuban is looking to sell a ma- jority stake in our dear old Dallas Mavs. Um, sorry — what? Has the man sud- denly decided to become a hermit and live in the remote woods or something? It’s a fair question to ask since the tech guru has said before that he would never sell the team. Likely not, but leave it to the internet to cook up some juicy conjecture as to what’s driving these seismic shifts in the House of Cuban. (Hint: It has to do with politics, the theory goes.) The Maverick-in-chief has opted to kiss goodbye a majority stake in the franchise he’s owned since 2000, The Washington Post reported. And, in a move that’s kind of funny considering that we live in casino-averse Texas, he’ll be selling to the family that runs the international gambling company Las Ve- gas Sands. Cuban, who bought the Mavs for $285 million, will apparently be raking it in. The agreement’s valuation range, according to The Associated Press? Oh, just a modest $3.5 billion. No biggie. Although Las Vegas Sands founder Shel- don Adelson died in 2021, his widow, Miriam, and her family are still major shareholders in that company. And Miriam seems to have taken a keen interest in Texas politics, having donated $1 million to Gov. Greg Abbott’s 2022 reelection campaign. This new partnership is also noteworthy because of Cuban’s vocal support of not only making sports betting le- gal in Texas, but allowing casinos to operate in the Lone Star State. Cuban’s departure prompted some sports observers to speculate whether he’d simply gotten sick of fame. But some on the internet have debated another hypothesis about what’s motivating the big-wig’s decision: power. In short order, users on X began wonder- ing aloud whether Cuban could be consider- ing a career in politics. “This, a day after leaving Shark Tank, my snap thought and question: is Mark Cuban about to run for President, or something crazy?” wrote Jeff D. Lowe, podcast host at Barstool. Bill Kristol, The Bulwark editor-at-large, offered up a similar take on X. “A few months ago, Mark Cuban said he wouldn’t run for president in 2024 because ‘my family would disown me,’” he wrote in a post. “Perhaps someone should check in with his family today?” Actually, the idea that Cuban would vie for the presidency isn’t out of the realm of possi- bility. News of the sale prompted a clip of an old CNBC interview to resurface in which Cuban was asked whether he’d run in 2020. “We’ll see what happens,” he said at the time, adding that he’d theoretically do so as an independent. “I’ve said it many times: It would take the perfect storm for me to do it. … There’s some things that could open the door, but I’m not projecting or predicting it right now.” So you’re saying there’s a chance. Beating the major party candidates would be tough, but even though he doesn’t have any experience in this realm to speak of, he isn’t afraid to wade into political wa- ters on social media. And parallels can cer- tainly be drawn between his resume and that of another businessman-turned-reality star who won the White House in 2016. Still, some X users had mixed feelings about a supposed Cuban presidential run, with Texas political activist Olivia Julianna writing: “The way that a Mark Cuban candi- dacy would both entice and devastate me at the same time.” Couldn’t have said it better ourselves. ▼ PUBLIC SAFETY INTERRUPTING THE INTERRUPTERS ‘VIOLENCE INTERRUPTERS’ ARE WORKING IN DALLAS, BUT FOR HOW LONG?. BY JACOB VAUGHN O ver the past couple of years, in dif- ferent parts of the city, you may have seen people wearing bright orange shirts that display the words “Dallas Cred.” The people wearing those bright orange shirts are part of a team that provides alter- natives to youth incarceration and services such as violence interruption. Dallas Cred (for “credibility”), an extension of the na- tional nonprofit organization Youth Advo- cate Programs Inc., is responsible for these workers and has achieved some solid re- sults, but that may not last much longer. The violence interrupters intervene in active violent situations, as well as provide services to people in hopes of preventing vi- olence from happening in the first place. Dallas signed a contract in 2021 with Youth Advocate Programs Inc. to bring violence in- terrupters to the city. It’s a tactic that was laid out as part of Mayor Eric Johnson’s Task Force on Safe Communities. For about the last two years, Dallas Cred violence interrupters have been fanning out to four crime-heavy areas of the city: Overton and Illinois, Webb Chapel and Lombardi, Loop 12 and Jim Miller, and the areas around Camp Wisdom and Gannon. The members of the team, mostly adults in their 30s and 40s, are either from or currently live in these four areas of the city. “This is truly a community-driven ef- fort,” Fred Fogg, national director of com- munity safety for Youth Advocate Programs Inc., told the Observer. The team members are out in the com- munity every day, looking to provide people with helpful services and acting to break up any acts of violence they see when it’s safe to do so. This work could involve getting some- one connected to housing or employment. It could also include physically breaking up a fight without police intervention and talking down the people involved. The contract with Youth Advocate Pro- grams Inc. expired in April, but you can still find the violence interrupters around Dal- las. This is because the organization has been able to use donor funds provided by the Communities Foundation of Texas (CFT) W.W. Caruth, Jr. Fund to keep the team going. Meanwhile, Dallas is in the procurement process to find a new team of violence interrupters. A recommendation could be made to the full City Council by January, a spokesperson for the city TechCrunch via WikiCommons Mark Cuban shook up the sports world this week over news that he’s agreed to sell his majority stake of the NBA team. Unfair Park from p3 >> p6 Jacob Vaughn Initially, Dallas Cred was a team of 12. Now, as it scales back its efforts, there are eight members.
