Study contends strip clubs aren't a magnet for crimes

Seattle strip clubs released a study Friday purporting to show they don't cause any more crime than nearby taverns, minimarts or department stores.

The study analyzed eight years of police responses at three Seattle strip clubs and concluded "there is no evidence" they were "disproportionately more often the source of police attention" than other businesses.

"Crime does not tend to accompany, concentrate around, or be aggravated by these adult business," the study said.

On the ballot

Seattle voters will decide Nov. 7 whether to trash an ordinance imposing strict new rules on strip clubs. The rules require dancers to stay at least 4 feet from customers. Direct tipping is banned, and clubs are to install brighter lighting.

Supporters say the new restrictions will be easier for police to enforce and would discourage the proliferation of new strip clubs. Opponents argue the rules are overly moralistic and would destroy legitimate businesses.

The study was commissioned to buttress the clubs' referendum campaign to overturn a tough new strip-club ordinance the City Council approved last year. The ordinance requires dancers to stay 4 feet from patrons, bans direct tipping and calls for brighter lighting.

Club owners have sunk more than $800,000 into a campaign to scuttle the rules, which are not being enforced pending the outcome of the vote.

A "no" vote Nov. 7 on Seattle Referendum 1 would overturn the ordinance.

City officials said they had not had time to carefully review the study. However, they dismissed it as biased and defended the 4-foot-rule ordinance as a necessary tool for police.

"It kind of reminds me of the tobacco industry hiring consultants to say tobacco was good for you," said Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis.

The study was conducted on behalf of local strip clubs by Daniel Linz, a professor of communication and law and society at University of California, Santa Barbara. Linz frequently works on behalf of the adult-entertainment industry to dispute claims of crime and other ill effects associated with adult establishments.

Linz's study looked at Rick's strip club in Lake City, Déjà Vu near Pike Place Market, and the Sands in Ballard. The city's fourth licensed strip club, Centerfolds, has not participated in the referendum campaign and was not part of the study.

Linz found that the strip clubs (which don't serve alcohol) attracted less police attention than some nearby bars.

For example, Déjà Vu had fewer police calls than downtown nightclubs and bars such as the Crocodile Cafe and The Whisky Bar.

Similar results were found near Rick's and the Sands. For example, the study found that police responded to more than 1,200 calls for service at a Fred Meyer store on Lake City Way between March 1998 and June 2006, compared with 375 for Rick's.

Most of the police responses at Rick's and other clubs stemmed from undercover vice inspections conducted occasionally to check if dancers are violating city rules by sexually touching patrons. Those inspections have declined in recent years because of budget cuts and directives that have shifted the vice unit to other priorities such as liquor inspections and street prostitution.

Linz's study contends that decline is evidence that police really do not regard conduct inside strip clubs as "a sufficient threat to public safety to justify a significant expenditure of their resources."

Assistant Police Chief Linda Pierce said raw data about police calls do not tell the whole story.

"I think it's unlikely patrons of strip clubs are likely to call police if things go on in there that might not be legal or appropriate," she said.

And Vic Webbeking, a neighbor of Rick's who is leading the campaign to keep the new rules, said no one should regard the clubs as good neighbors.

Webbeking said he and his wife, Marylee, are regularly disturbed by squealing tires, loud stereos and drunken arguments in Rick's parking lot. Bottles, cans and condoms have been tossed into his yard. But Webbeking said he has never called police "because we would be calling so often we would simply become nuisances."

Police say they have frequently found violations of the city's rules barring sexual contact between dancers and customers when they send undercover officers into clubs. Dancers make their money performing erotic lap dances for tips.

The city has suspended 114 dancers' licenses for violations since 2002 (26 of those were reversed on appeal by hearing examiners), according to the city's licensing division.

Seattle police spokesman Sean Whitcomb also cautioned against reading too much into some numbers. For example, the study said the biggest culprit for police calls in businesses studied downtown was a smoke shop at Second Avenue and Pike Street.

But police often write down the closest street address when they report an incident at the notoriously seedy downtown intersection — a frequent site of public drinking and drug activity. In other words, criminal activity reported at or near some businesses might not be as directly tied to them in the same way as vice activity at strip clubs.

"The numbers speak for themselves. We got them from the city," said Gil Levy, an attorney for Rick's.

The clubs paid Linz at least $7,500 for the study, but Levy said he did not know the final bill.

Jim Brunner: 206-515-5628 or jbrunner@seattletimes.com