Lee County passes ordinance to regulate area’s ‘adult use’
DIXON – Lee County’s got strip clubs covered.
After about 2 years without an ordinance, county board members last week adopted one that regulates adult entertainment establishments.
Lee County has one “gentlemen’s club.” Heartbreakers, southeast of Ashton on U.S. Route 30, opened in 1999. The club, which features topless dancers, renewed its liquor license this summer.
The county fought – and lost – a battle to regulate the club with a retroactive ordinance created in 2000. That ordinance was scrapped in 2007, but the new state’s attorney, Henry Dixon, has been pushing to put a new one in place.
“Somebody had convinced members of the county board that they didn’t need this ordinance,” Dixon said. “And, of course, that’s not the fact.”
Instead of writing a new law, board members voted Tuesday to reinstate the old ordinance. The law defines adult entertainment, requires owners of establishments to obtain an operator’s license, and puts oversight of clubs
in the hands of the sheriff, according to the
document.
“It gives the sheriff the authority that the sheriff needs to adequately monitor adult entertainment premises,” Dixon said.
His drive to get the law on the books came after he’d heard rumors that someone might be interested in opening another strip club in Lee County, between Dixon and Sterling, he said.
“I’ve never been told who; I’ve never been told how serious that interest is, [or] that they’ve done any negotiating or talking with anybody on the county board,” Dixon said.
The ordinance requires that anyone interested in opening a club do so only in unincorporated areas of Lee County. A $200 processing fee and a $5,000 security deposit also are required.
The law also governs the tipping policy for performers and requires that the owner register all employees with the county no later than the day before they begin work.
