Flesh Nightclub

It all started a little over a decade ago when the city of San Bernardino illegally shut down a local business due to an unconstitutional zoning ordinance (Cruz, 2006). Disregard for one moment that the local business in question was an all nude cabaret. Disregard for another moment that employees of said cabaret performed possible sex acts, not sanctioned by club management, on paying customers during lap dances inside such cabaret (Grenda, The judge refuses to reverse the jury verdict. A higher court is to be asked next, 2004). In 1995, San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge John Wade granted the city an expedited hearing in a bid to have the Flesh Club shut down as a public nuisance (Grenda, Another judge rules he can hear a public nuisance case filed by San Bernardino City, 2004). The resulting actions by the city closed the cabaret from January 1995 to July 1999 under an ordinance later found to be overly restrictive and unconstitutional (Brooksand & MacDuff, 2004).

In a 2004 ruling, a jury awarded a 1.4 million dollar judgment against the city, for harming the cabaret's business (Richard, Flesh Club attorney says San Bernardino prosecution due to spite, 2007). The cabaret originally sought $2.6 million in damages, but that amount was reduced after a witness testified during trial about prostitution at the club. Though the request for back interest was denied, Flesh Club's attorney, Roger Jon Diamond, noted that interest continues to accrue on the $1.4 million award since the jury announced it in June 2004. The city has yet to pay the damages pending an appeal and appeals planned for the unforeseeable future.

As yet another race for San Bernardino City Attorney approaches, November 6th, the unfortunate victim of current and future hopeful City Attorney Jim Penman focuses his crosshairs on the Flesh Club once again. This self proclaimed "Watchdog inside City Hall" claimed a victory when San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Donald Alvarez issued a preliminary ruling that the all-nude business routinely had engaged in promiscuous sexual and lewd conduct. The terms of Alvarez's preliminary ruling would close the Flesh Club for eight months and include an injunction prohibiting lewd activities if it reopens after that. Trying to reclaim some of the more than six-hundred thousand dollars on legal fees relating to the club fight (Richard, 2 square off in city attorney's race in San Bernardino, 2007), the owner, Ryan Welty, will be fined twenty-five thousand dollars as well. I foresee a plethora of appeals in this matter as well.

Sex, as any free clinic employee will tell you, is an inherently dangerous activity. Heart rates skyrocket. Capillaries dilate. Synapses fry. But that is a proactive government for you, especially when you consider that no one has yet to be convicted in a court of law of a single act of prostitution at the Flesh Club. Over the years, undercover police and private investigators crawled up and down the proverbial pole joint in their desperate search to root out illegal activity. One cracker-jack reporter from the IE Weekly writes, "One private investigator, former Riverside County Sheriff's deputy Duane Minard, was so dedicated to the task that he went into a Flesh VIP room with a stripper and spent eight-hundred tax-dollars trying to get to the bottom of things (Inland Empire Weekley, 2007)."

Once again caught in the middle of this unnecessary legal feud are the unfortunate taxpayers. How many people have been convicted of lewd or lascivious acts at this Flesh Club? But despite stacks of testimony from taxpayer-sponsored witnesses claiming they saw sex acts going on, that somehow never translated into a single conviction. Honestly though, who really cares if a couple guys are being overcharged for hand-jobs, as long as those hand-jobs are being taxed and going back to the community chest, I'm more than sure Uncle Sam is happy or agreeable with it at the least. In the end all that matters is if it's monetarily taxable, but that is a completely different subject I hope we get to debate. I mean come on though, over two million dollars gone with taxpayers footing the bill, come on people grow