San Diego Police photograph the evidence during strip club “Inspection”
Was a police raid necessary to check permits and compliance?
As an Environmental Health and Safety professional and Tea Party activist, one of my concerns is overregulation of business.
For example, the permit process for various operations can be both expensive and time-consuming. Failure to comply with complex regulatory requirements is potentially costly. I rail the business-crushing California laws often.
However, I must note that none of my clients have ever had nearly nude pictures taken of them during inspections.
Some Legal Insurrection fans may recall that a couple of the 9-11 hijackers prepared for their suicide terror mission by visiting a strip club. That establishment, Cheetahs, is now the center of a national debate about Fourth Amendment rights.
From 10 News San Diego: Questions raised after officers swarm Kearny Mesa strip club
A manager at Cheetahs strip club says his dancers felt violated by police who photographed them almost nude.
The mood at the strip club in Kearny Mesa quickly turned intense Thursday night when 10 officers swarmed the building with guns and bulletproof vests, interrupting business for a couple of hours.
“I didn’t know if it was a bank robbery or serial killer on the loose the way they had come in like that,” said manager Rich Buonantony.
Was it a raid? No! It was an inspection.
San Diego police Lt. Kevin Mayer issued this statement to 10 News:
One of the many responsibilities of the San Diego Police Department’s Vice Unit is to conduct random inspections of strip clubs to ensure dancers are complying with the law and that they have an entertainers permit. In most cases, Vice Unit detectives do not require or request clubs to shut down. Photographs of the entertainers permit and the person in possession of it are taken for investigative purposes.
According to an interview with the club’s proprietor on the LaDona Harvey Show, the permit fee to strip in this city is $400. It seems to me that as taxpaying citizens engaged in a legal activity, the entertainers should have been treated in a more dignified fashion.
“They asked us for our licenses and then took down our Social Security and had us line up in the back of the dressing rooms and take pictures,” said stripper Katelynn Delorie.
Delorie is a hairdresser by day and a stripper at night. She has a lot of tattoos and says that made things even worse.
“They made me feel like I was a gang member pretty much and they wanted to document every single one of my tattoos,” said Delorie.
Buonantony says he is happy to work with police but hopes they are more subtle about it next time and respect the dancers.
A Washington Post analysis by Radley Balko sums up my initial reaction to this story:
So this was a regulatory operation. But instead of sending a few bureaucrats to do the paperwork, the city of San Diego thought it appropriate to send a team of gun-toting cops to raid the place (similar to recent masked, militarized SWAT raids on massage parlors). Remember, according to the report, there was no suspicion of criminal activity here. This was a routine inspection. Which raises the question: Are all routine, regulatory inspections of San Diego businesses done with raid teams? Is it just strip clubs? Are strippers known for being dangerous? And if the photos were necessary for record-keeping purposes, why was it necessary to photograph the women while they weren’t wearing clothing?
Arguments have been made that the police needed those guns (strip clubs being not noted for the morality of their patrons); they had to go en mass to prevent strippers from leaving though the back door (God forbid a dancer not pay the $400); or, they were acting on a tip and wanted to avoid a warrant (so an “inspection was a good excuse to go in”).
However, per a poll at the San Diego Union Tribune, the rationalizations are not passing the smell test.
Balko offers this assessment about how best to judge the appropriateness of what occurred during this raid, referring to a 10 News video report in the article linked above:
It’s also puzzling why the TV station felt obligated to protect the identities of the police officers. If this was truly just a regulatory inspection, the cops wouldn’t be undercover officers. So what’s the point? This seems to be to be a pretty questionable use of that sort of force. The TV station obviously believes there’s at least an argument to be made that it was, or they wouldn’t have aired the story. TV stations air the names and photos of people suspected of crimes all the time. Yet police officers are public servants, who are authorized to carry guns, forcibly detain, and in some cases kill. There’s a strong argument that journalists should make every effort to expose the identities of officers who use force in questionable ways, not go out of their way to obscure them.
It’s nice to see a “mainstream media” journalist finally questioning the potential abuse of power by authority, which has been noticeably lacking for some time.
However, as a tea party activist, I am consistent in my belief that overregulation is bad for business – any business. This “inspection” seems like a waste of police resources, cost a legally run business money, and seems to have violated the civil rights of the “inspectees”.
(Image from San Diego Union Tribune, Women promoted Cheetahs at Comic-Con on Thursday, July 12, 2012.)
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Comments
Pictures or it didn’t happen.
(Hey, I tried to upthumb and it recorded as a down. Do we have an explanation re the great down thumb mystery?)
Yeah, I clicked on this on just in case there was photographic proof. Can’t be too careful of claims on the net these days. (ahem)
Welcome to Ukraine USA.
Regulatory? No. Harassment? Yes. five Oh does this all the time when the y have to look tough on crime because it’s easier than catching real criminals and usually makes better headlines.
Our newly-militarized cops now become even more like some pathetic, third-world constabulary.
What next? Ramming our new Urban Assault Vehicle through the walls of (alleged) brothels?
As the late Biggie Smalls once uttered, “When da Five-Oh go bad, who da ***** ‘spose to call?”
Let’s face it, Mainstream Media has begun to feel that it’s part of government since it spends a lot of it’s time covering stuff up, promoting people and stuff it shoudn’t and white washing anything that gets out.
This applies all over the country now.
A couple of plain clothes cops could have checked things out ‘quietly.’
Why pictures and not personal privacy? What about Forth Amendment rights?
No warrant? No probable cause?
Are not the pictures private property of the stripper when taken inside a strip club?
Tax accounting would have SSNs.
Why the Police state?
Why the police state, Jen? Because they can. Because no one will stand up to them and say “Stop!” in any meaningful way. This sort of will not end until these para-military “raids” are routinely met with gunfire.
Correction: “this sort of thing will not end”
/Gotta proofread…
Time to sue. The women were sexually assaulted by the cops.
Radney Balko is a recent addition to the Washington Post. As many people here know, he has been reporting on the militarization of the police for years. It’s not a coincidence that you’re starting to see this kind of story in a mainstream media outlet – one of those outlets has undergone some significant changes of late.
Balko is possibly the first real change at the Washington Post that Bezos implemented since he bought it last year. His hiring is IMHO quite possibly the best change Bezos has implemented, followed by the sacking of Ezra Klein and the partnering with the Volokh Conspiracy. So far, I approve.
Those are VERY good points.
Leslie… A little background on Cheetahs, like say, that the former owner and members of the city council and their staff were all convicted of Federal racketeering and bribery charges for using the dancers to illegally bundle campaign contributions in exchange for repealing the no touch law should have been included in your article. I can well understand why this particular business is more closely given its history.
Should have said more closely scrutinized.
I could understand why this business might be more closely scrutinized.
That’s still no excused for a raid by masked armed cops disguised as an inspection.
Conservative Mom you should get your facts straight before you comment! The owner was not convicted of bribery and councilmen were not convicted of accepting bribes! The owner plead guilty to wire fraud and testified against the councilmen who were convicted of extortion of the owner. You have it all backwards, the councilmen demanded money and the owner complied but spoke on his phone over a state line so it was wire fraud!
Galardi was indicted with fraud, conspiracy and extortion charges, but plead guilty to one charge of wire fraud in San Diego and one count of racketeering in Las Vegas. District Judge Jeffrey T. Miller noted, “Galardi’s quick guilty plea, his substantial cooperation with the government and his “generally reliable testimony.” So he got a good deal to squeal.
My original point was that closer scrutiny is not surprising considering the history of Cheetahs.
California does regulatory inspections, and they always reap huge fines from all kinds of businesses: beauty shops, for example. They retaliate against people who complain, too.
So would those pictures be available under FOIA laws?
With their new military hardware, coos are feeling their oats and acting in ways that alienate the public. When you have an administration that thinks cop killers are the bomb, it’s not wise to alienate those who would likely come to your defense so you can go home to your family.
Unless…
Destabilization is the goal, justifying a tyrannical gov’t takeover.
Bikers like strippers. Strippers like meth. Biker sell meth. Strippers have a lot of money. Bikers scare the crap out of strip club managers. Strip clubs are a recipe for disaster. But such situations retire a deft touch by the PD.