Greensboro Sex Club Closed

Special Report - January 26, 2010
Many Greensboro families and business owners are relieved at the safer atmosphere of their community, following last week’s closure of “Nakita’s Play House,” a strip club located on Randelman Road in Greensboro. The City of Greensboro filed a nuisance abatement lawsuit against the club on January 21, after a long-term undercover police investigation revealed that the club played host to various criminal offenses involving prostitution, and violated a 2003 state law prohibiting the sale of alcohol at certain sexually-oriented businesses.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s repeated interpretations of First Amendment free speech protections have stated that communities cannot simply reject strip clubs solely because some community members disapprove of the immoral behavior and objectification of women that these clubs encourage. But the high court has ruled that communities can zone sexually-oriented businesses to isolated areas of the city, where their harm to businesses and families through “secondary effects,” such as noise, traffic, decreased property value, and increased crime, is curtailed. Cities can also close down sexually-oriented businesses that do not comply with state and local regulations.

In 2003, the North Carolina Family Policy Council successfully advocated for the passage of SB996–ABC-Sexually Explicit Conduct Banned, which restricts conduct at sexually-oriented businesses that serve alcohol.

While proponents and owners of sexually oriented businesses have repeatedly attempted to argue that their businesses do not present harmful secondary effects to communities, the record of clubs like Nakita’s Play House prove otherwise. The Greensboro News and Record reports that police have responded to 60 instances of crime there in less than a decade. Many of the crimes were violent or drug-related, and two of them involved homicides.

As we previously reported, Alamance County Commissioners shut down an area strip club this past November after another undercover police operation produced 700 criminal charges, mostly related to prostitution, and drug and alcohol violations.

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