In an email obtained by The Dallas Morning News, the Dallas Police Department said it will begin enforcing an ordinance to shut down sexually oriented businesses between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. The email came from Dallas police Chief Eddie Garcia, who wrote that violators could lose their licenses and face criminal charges. The penalty would be up to a year in prison or a fine of up to $4,000.
Kristin Lowman, a spokesperson for the department, told the Observer by email that DPD was notifying the businesses about enforcement of the ordinance. “The Dallas Police Department’s Special Investigations Division is providing education regarding enforcement of the hours of operation ordinance for sexually oriented businesses,” Lowman said. “The Dallas Police Department sent a letter to each licensed sexually oriented business and visited each licensed business with a copy of the letter, outlining the revised ordinance.”
One local strip club called Bucks Wild is directing its social media followers to email their City Council members about their opposition to the ordinance.
The city and a group of local sexually oriented businesses have been arguing over the ordinance in court since it was passed last January. The ordinance applies to strip clubs, escort services, adult book and video stores. Roger Albright, an attorney representing the businesses in court, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Gary, a spokesperson for Paris Adult Book Store and another sexually oriented business called New Fine Arts, who preferred not to give his last name, said he was upset over the enforcement of the ordinance. New Fine Arts is one of the businesses involved in the lawsuit over the new hours. He said New Fine Arts has operated 24/7 for the last 40 years with no issues with the police. “I’m not a problem,” Gary said. “But the city seems to think that I’m part of the problem because of the crime. … They lump me in with the strip clubs or whatever’s causing problems. It’s just aggravating.”"It’s just aggravating." – Gary, spokesman, New Fine Arts
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Since the ordinance has taken effect, he said he’s had to hire extra security to watch the store while it’s closed. “I’ve got to have someone there after hours, 2 a.m. – 6 a.m., because I don’t want to be tagged. I don’t want people breaking into my store,” he said. “I’ve got no income coming in for four hours every night, but I’ve got to keep people on the payroll.”
The city argues that the late-night business operations are linked to incidences of violent crime that drain police and fire department resources. A federal district court initially said Dallas didn’t have the facts to back up that argument. But in October, a higher court, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, ruled in the city’s favor. The court said the city had plenty of evidence to show a link between late-night operations of sexually oriented businesses and an increase in “noxious side effects,” such as crime.
The court ruling said there was a rash of shootings in or near these businesses in Dallas from late 2020 to early 2021 that resulted in multiple fatalities. For about eight months in 2021, a Dallas police task force conducted patrols near sexually oriented businesses after midnight, making 123 felony arrests, responding to 134 calls for service and issuing over 1,100 citations. The court ruling said the task force made more than 350 drug and weapon seizures. The department compared crime statistics from different times around the sexually oriented businesses and found that most violent crime occurred between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. These hours accounted for the majority of aggravated assaults, rapes, robberies and murders in 2020 and 2021. A majority of the 911 calls and calls to the fire department also happened during these hours, according to the court ruling.
On the flip side, the sexually oriented businesses argue that this crime data is skewed, in part because it includes crime from within a 500-foot radius of the businesses. The lower court agreed with this argument, adding that the ordinance didn’t leave the businesses’ protected speech sufficiently accessible. That’s why the district court initially granted an injunction to halt enforcement of the ordinance. Many of the sexually oriented businesses named in the lawsuit didn't respond to requests for comment.
But the appellate court rejected this, saying it didn’t matter that the data included crime around the businesses, that it was enough to justify the ordinance and that the city could enforce it.
Gary Krupkin, a local First Amendment attorney, told the Observer, “I don’t think anyone in our business particularly likes this ordinance.” However, he said the ordinance regulates the time, place and manner of the sexually oriented businesses more than it does the businesses’ speech. This could hurt the chances of the sexually oriented businesses winning the suit, he said.
For now, the businesses in question are left to move forward with the ordinance in mind. Over the last few days, several have updated their hours of operation on Google to show that they now close at 2 a.m.
