Thursday, April 01, 1999
Topless club in for inspections
Opening surprised Hamilton
BY RANDY McNUTT
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HAMILTON — Officials said Wednesday they will inspect the new Diamonds Cabaret by week's end to make sure the business doesn't violate any city laws.
In business for only two nights, Diamonds has already violated a few sensibilities, some say.
“It's tacky,” said Marveen Nevel, who lives nearby in a new condominium complex.
“It's a political nightmare — a problem,” City Manager Steve Sorrell said. “We'll send building and zoning and health inspectors there to see if things conform. That's normal operating procedure. We would do that anyway.
“But what usually happens is that a new business comes to us first. In this case, they (owners) didn't come to us. They just opened the doors.”
Without warning, Diamonds, which features female dancers with string bikini bottoms and no tops, opened Monday in the former Doubleday's Grill and Tavern on Washington Boulevard, behind the Hamilton Meadows plaza on the city's west side.
“You go to dinner one night and the next night it's an entirely different menu,” Mayor Thomas Nye said. “That has raised some questions.”
On Tuesday night, several neighbors picketed the strip bar. Observers estimated the crowd at about 200, mostly people from out of town and some Iron Horsemen motorcyclists from Dayton.
Diamonds is represented by Cincinnati lawyer Louis Sirkin, who specializes in First Amendment issues.
“It's a legitimate business operating within the boundaries of the law,” he said. “Its performances are constitutionally protected.”
Seven nights a week, the club will feature performances by 10 to 30 exotic women dancers who are topless, except for latex pasties.
A city ordinance prohibiting adult dancing in certain areas does not apply to Diamonds because it's in a general business zone.
“We passed some restrictive ordinances in 1996,” Councilman Richard Holzber ger said. “We thought new ones (businesses) were confined to industrial tracts. Apparently, we didn't make that all-inclusive.
“I have asked the law director to give us new ordinances to place all adult businesses in industrial areas. And current zoning should be as restrictive.”
Mr. Holzberger said he also wants to expand the distance — from 500 to 1,000 feet — that adult businesses can sit from churches, homes and day care centers.
“I think they knew what they were doing, and they had this planned,” he said of Diamonds' owners.
Mr. Sirkin said the club is affiliated with — but not owned by — the Diamonds club that operates in Montgomery County. He said the Hamilton club is owned by the former owners of Doubleday's.
On Wednesday afternoon, the club was quiet. A young man wearing a white golf shirt sat in front with a cell phone. He told a few curious people to come back from 7 p.m. to 2:30 a.m.
The club sits next to a movie theater and behind Kroger's. That upsets Mrs. Nevel, who lives in Deerfield Village, a new residential development off of Washington Boulevard.
“I'm personally opposed to it,” Mrs. Nevel said of the club. “It shouldn't be here. It should be in the country. The theater is where young people gather — right next door.”
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