The Observation Deck

http://blog.cleveland.com/openers/2007/ ... rippe.html

I feel kind of bad for the one guy's girlfriend. She lost her bartending job because of the new smoking law. Now, she may lose her adult entertainment job due to a potential new strip club law.

Doug

I actually sat in on these hearings. The State, Local and Veteran Affairs Commmittee had hearings on this before the hearings on Eminent Domain.

For the most part the people that spoke on behalf of Adult Entertainment, were articulate and made excellent points. Angelina was incredibly articulate. She called herself a stripper, a club owner and a mother. She graduate Summa Cum Laude from Ursuline college. Her oldest son was an officer in Iraq, and her second son was in ROTC in college. She was one of the best speakers I have ever heard. (And I have heard a lot!)

Everyone in the room thought the guy from Citizens for Community Values was crazy. Last year, this group got the state to okay that cities and other localities can enact this legislation if they thought it was needed. To date, no city has needed it.

Places that have a liquor license are exempt from this closing time. And it appeared to many of the senators that alcohal contributed more to this problem than did dancers. But.... they are afraid of being seen as in favor of adult entertainment.

Citizens for Community Values was saying there is drug use, prostitution and loud noise outside of these clubs. Interestingly enough, we have laws against all these things, we don't need more laws. With the 6 foot law, dancers can not enter through the same door as patrons or walk through the bar. It is clear they want to close adult entertainment in the state.

For the record, I have never been in a "Adult Entertainment" venue nor do I know of anyone that shared that they do. (Outside of a few people who may have seen a show in Las Vegas). But it is scary that this group is slowly and surely pushing their very conservative social agenda and our State Senators, who from the questions, clearly thought this law was not needed, fell into lock step to vote for it - because they wanted to win the next election.

Okay, that is my rant for the day.

My question is simple.

What exactly is wrong with adult entertainment? Are we, as a society, so scared of our own bodies and of sex that we have to go back to America's Puritan Heritage and strike all things sexual from the public eye? (and what is the difference between live and tv? see Mtv lately?)

And will that help or will making adult entertainment even more 'taboo' simply contribute to our problems instead of solve them?

Charyn

I guess it could be easier there to catch meningitis than some other places.

It's pretty depressing to be in a strip club. There's an ambiance of desperation and pettyness. Like being in a casino, or those Young Republican meetings I went to in college.

One of my friends had two or three bachelor parties over the course of a year. I finally had to stop going with him to these venues. On his last bachelor party, to the circus and sideshow, I didn't go. But there were pictures of it afterwards. His friends had paid the women to rip his shirt off and beat him with a whip. He had stark brutal welts all over his chest and stomach. I guess that was pretty funny, because I laughed for a long time. I would have laughed had I been there personally.

Forget MTV have you seen Victoria Secret commercials???

I would much rather see this group push for tougher pedophile laws or not let people rent ENTIRE buildings to pedophiles!!! Did any else see on the news the families being evicted from an apt. building so some group can rent it out to a group of sex offenders? Here is a riddle for y'all to solve: What do you get when you group six rapists, and three child molesters in one unit??????
Are we smarter than a fifth grader???

To answer your riddle, a small apartment building on Clifton Boulevard in Lakewood.

yea nice. and six rapists living together, it would seem, would be five new ways they each learn to do new "stuff". these people can't be reformed. i would rather live next door to a pot head than a pedophile. release the potheads and keep the pedophiles locked up.

You forget an important question -

Where, once they have been released, should sex offenders (any kind) live?

Is it better to have them all where we know and can wath, or better to spread them out in the community?

Sure - we dot want them, but no-one else does either so that's not enough.

And by all rights, like it or not, once someone's sentence is up they have the right to find a place to live (within limits if indicated bylaw) and the right to find a job, the right to commute to and from that job, shop at the supermarket, etc.

Its not as easy as saying "I dont want them here".

And no, I have no answers. I just know it isnt as easy a question as FOX news would like us to believe.

ALways,
Charyn

Charyn Compeau wrote:And no, I have no answers. I just know it isnt as easy a question as FOX news would like us to believe.

ALways,
Charyn

Charyn/All

It seems to me if we can tell them where they can't live we should be able to tell them where they can live.

All non-violent offenders should be out of jail.

We do not need more jails.

.

If you really want me to answer that I would say an island far away!!! Adults that get convicted of child molestation have probably done it dozens of times before they got caught. I have no problem saying I don't want any responsibility to house them!! And the laws saying they need to be a distance away from schools should be enforced! But putting them together in a house seems like a disaster waiting to happen! Would you really want that house next door to you and your children??

Justine - So what island? And where is the line of offensiveness that gets shipped to the island? And who staffs the island? Who pays for the island? What do we do when the island is full? Do we have separate man islands and woman islands? If not how do we prevent procreation, or what do we do when the offenders pair up and start families?

And that doesn't even touch the constitutionality/legality of such an action!!

Jim - IMHO the harder questions is where, not what if. Another follow up questions to your post might also be:

If non-violent offenders are not jailed - how do we intend to prosecute non-violent crimes? (bearing in mind that community service and fines are great provided you can get the convicted to pay or serve - if they dont - what then?)

Last- please take this post in the spirit that it is offered. NOT to try to prove anyone wrong or myself right (i have no magic bullet in mind) - but to ask questions that go beyond rhetoric and seek to really understand the problems and the options we have to choose from.

Kindly,
Charyn

when you fill the prisons with drug offenders, some of whom are not that violent, you have no room for rapists molesters murderers etc.

Back on topic, I would rather live by a strip club than by a child molester. and no I don't happen to patronize those joints

Doug

Disclaimer: I am not condoning drug use

Charyn Compeau wrote:J
Jim - IMHO the harder questions is where, not what if. Another follow up questions to your post might also be:

If non-violent offenders are not jailed - how do we intend to prosecute non-violent crimes? (bearing in mind that community service and fines are great provided you can get the convicted to pay or serve - if they dont - what then?)


Charyn

Charyn

You answered your own question, and I am sure that some would still end up in jail.

Non-violent offenders should be able to teach others the error of their ways. Ron Miliken the junk bond giant when jailed, negotiated to teach poor people how to invest with very little. They allowed him to open a place in Harlem and from everything I read it was very successful at teaching families how to build nest eggs from pennies.

While this is an extreme case, we have roads that need fixing and cleaning. Grass that needs cutting, homes that need painting. Take away their weekends and free time and channel it.

Judge Patrick Carroll has been working with a program I see a lot of hope for. If you are stopped for a DUI you are taken to a hospital prison for evaluation and treatment, not jail. The thought is, many of these people have committed crimes but are not criminals in the sense of prison. Keep them out, rehabilitate, and turn them back into productive members of the community.

The war on drugs is not working and let's be honest, jail is not working. More laws is not working. The entire system needs to be analyzed and fixed quickly, or we are head to "Escape from New York" where the entire island of Manhattan is turned into a prison city.

However those that pray on the weak, young and old, and take away their personal freedoms have been proven to be for the most prart impossible to rehabilitate. I have to believe that Justine is right on this one. If you throw a pot head in jail, you take away his way to make a living, legally. But he will learn in prison how to make it illegally. If you put twenty pedophiles in a house, I am sure they will tell stories, and only get worse and harder to catch at the evil they do.

There is no doubt that those that serve their time have paid their dues. But I would hope the government would always err on the side of the lawful residents over the side of those that were criminals.

One thing I would love to know is when did the genetic experiement in the USA go so terribly wrong? Prisons filled to a larger percentage than any other country. It seems everyday we read many stories of murder, kidnapping, standoffs, molesting. Over half the country medicated! This has got be fixed, and fixed quickly.

.

Well since my "island" was my fantasy, and not a spelled out reality, I will answer your question with the Island of "Lost" where all karma comes due!!!

I mean come on, do you really think I have an island in my back pocket to recommend for sex offenders? Logic would tell most people that housing violent rapists and child rapists together is not the answer. If I am supposed to come up with the answers, then I would need a paycheck and an office.

But I have NO problem saying I don't want them living in a apartment up the street from me!!!! I am not trying to be politically correct either!! I have all the grace in my heart for children, and ZERO for adults who harm them! Do you know how many children that monster harmed, Phil; How many lives he ruined before Jim and Dan and the Observer gang got him arrested???? Special needs children, some autistic! He preyed on the most vulnerable! Thousands before he got caught! Three strikes for people like him mean thousands of childrens lives and their families ruined! So to ask me the solutions for someone like him, well I can't say on this blog!!!!

Going back to the thread and original post, these special needs groups worrying about strip clubs over tougher laws for real criminals is a joke. And what is tragically funny about the whole thing, is how it spells out how easily politicians can be "swayed". Both parties voted the way this insane group "persuaded" them to vote. I laughed when I read that the Republicans were "threatened" by this group that they would vote other Republicans in if they didn't support it! It just shows what has happened to politics. So, they supported it!

I really don't care one way or the other about strip clubs to be honest. But care deeply about real crime and will support the people who also care about real crime and keeping our children safe!

Doug,
The funny thing about strip clubs is that they are not built next to homes. But the housing with a group of rapists and child molesters, IS! Don't you find that "funny"? I have never read any research on strip clubs being the root of crime either!

Justine:

You brought this here. What does Jim say? "If you confess it you possess it"?

You want them gone from here - but really, that isnt a viable option is it? And yes, my very first questions was sincere - you responded with the 'island' so I went with it.

As for if I thought you were serious...well.. Australia would be a fine example of people being serious about shipping criminals off. It is certainly in no way a new idea so, yes, I went with it sincerely. And if you read the last part of my post you would have seen that I asked that you realize that I was approaching it sincerely. After all *i* DO believe that there IS value in examining how we can isolate threat to our community.

I also believe that starting with an idea that is 'over the top' and turning it around in our heads can sometimes bring about discussion that can stimulate ideas. Or the "Well maybe not that Exactly... but what if _____" kinds of discussions that generate innovative solutions to age old problems.


Obviously, that is not the kind of conversation I can expect or hope to see here so I offer my apologies to others for responding to the posts that were clearly veering off topic and for my contribution to those off topic posts.

Charyn