Vegas, Baby, Vegas

Los Angeles City Council members, whose salaries are the highest in the country (in excess of $130,000 a year), have just voted unanimously to ban lap dancing from the porn capital of the world. The law, expected to be signed by Mayor James Hahn, "requires state-licensed security guards to be on duty [at strip clubs] at all times," according to Reuters. "Violators face up to six months in jail and as much as $2,500 in fines." Besides driving still more businesses out of L.A. (and depriving future Courtney Loves of an important revenue source), this gobsmackingly idiotic decision will serve as further workfare for the lefty Council's favorite charity: the LAPD rank and file. Hahn already caved to the police union by delivering a three-day workweek (over the strenuous objections to LAPD management) just after taking office, thereby making it much easier for our cops to moonlight as bodyguards for Death Row records and such.

Comments

[Andrew Lynch]

Wow, Matt, I was looking for a string words that summed up my immediate reaction to this news, but your string beats mine. "Gobsmackingly idiotic decision" it is.

Is Rudy Guiliani doing some morality consulting for Whoretown? It's become a cliche that only in California will you see a collision between Form of Decadence A (overpaid, morally normative pols) and Form of Decadence B (sex workers) in Decadent Environment C (Los Angeles), resulting in Asinine Legislation and Licensing D.

I was going to say something like, "Thank God I live in sensible [said with straight face] San Francisco," but then I seem to recall that we're going to require psychics to become licensed.

Canada is sounding really sexy to me these days.

[Matt Welch]

Hey -- I've got a mini-story about licensing psychics in the current issue of Reason! Buy it today!

[JSM]

"this gobsmackingly idiotic decision will serve as further workfare for the lefty Council's favorite charity: the LAPD rank and file."

Now, unless I have been mislabeled a lefty, it is my leftist point of view that government needs to keep its moral hands off of consenting adults (including legalizing prostitution) and to regulate, if not minimize, police power and enforcement duties. This looks more like the work of one popular conservative, Rudy G.

But then again, I am a regular Reason reader.

[R.C. Dean]

Sadly, JSM, your attempt to hang this idiocy on conservatives founders on one fact - conservatives don't control the LA City Council. Liberals/Leftists do.

Lets not forget that prudery is not the sole province of conservatives. The hardcore feminists, leftists to a core, are all applauding this, I'm sure.

[Andrew Lynch]

Matt,

I'm a subscriber. :> Is it in the St. Martha issue? Or is there a newer one out?

JSM,

Nothing lefty (Where is Lefty, anyway?) about your position on this. It was precisely my disgust with this sort of unconscionable intrusiveness that inspired me to adopt libertarian principles (in all areas except nano-government -- I'll be happy with just much smaller government), divorce the Democratic party, and join the big LP.

While Democrats presumably wouldn't waste their time with this sort of misguided legislation (focusing instead on others), I'd be interested in knowing the party makeup of the LA city council and it's mayor (I'm too lazy to look it up). If you told me it's mostly Republicans behind this, I'd say, "But I thought Repubs were for less regulation?" and then slap myself for being so naive. Less regulation, indeed...unless it involves something that offends them or which they believe is bad for Americans. Including the simple pleasure Joe Blow gets when a pretty girl dances in his lap.

[Andrew Lynch]

R.C. Dean -- you answered my question (above) about the composition of the council. Now, I'm really confused by the level of prudery, as you put it, this fool law demonstrates. Sigh. I think I've had my fill of political BS for the day. I'm going to go read a good book.

[Anonymous]

Don't worry, Andrew. You can still get a good lapdance in San Francisco! I have a feeling a lapdance ban here in SF would be ignored by the cops to the same extent the smoking ban has been.

[Matt Welch]

Andrew -- Whoops! It's in the next one. Sorry, these monthly publication schedules can be confusing ...

The new Council is left/Democrat, Latino/black, in historic proportions. Somewhere in my house is a truly horrifying cover story in the L.A. Alternative Press, exulting about the "historic coalition" or whatever, and urging them to focus on "big picture issues" instead of getting bogged down in "pothole politics" ... Since then, the Council has been busy declaring its big-picture opposition to the Iraq war & other Bush Administration projects.

Hahn is a mushy-mouthed vaguely lefty career city pol, known mostly for being son of a local politician beloved by the black population of South Los Angeles. He owes his election in no small part due to a bout of last-minute racial fearmongering -- running an anti-Antonio Villaraigosa ad showing a sketchy brown-skinned dude smoking crack (or snorting coke; I forget which). Villaraigosa, BTW, was also slammed by the same people obsessed with MEChA & Aztlan & Reconquista.

It's mostly a sorry lot. Luckily, my councilman, Tom LaBonge, is notorious for being concerned with pothole politics. For which he is widely mocked.

[Dan]

Villaraigosa, BTW, was also slammed by the same people obsessed with MEChA & Aztlan & Reconquista.

I've been "obsessed with MEChA" ever since the local chapter at UCSD (my alma mater) called for the murder of Border Patrol agents, and labelled all hispanic Border Patrol agents as race traitors. Then they enlisted the campus administration to help silence their critics (including, bizarrely enough, the campus humor paper, the Koala).

They're modern-day fascists (in the classic Italian sense of the term); they just don't have political power yet. No amount of spin can change the fact that MEChA is a morally abhorrent organization, and always has been.

[Matt Welch]

Dan -- When was that, out of curiosity?

I don't know enough about MEChA to pass judgment, beyond finding some of their founding statements & principles to be exclusionary tribalist nonsense. For what it's worth, Villaraigosa (and my congressman, Xavier Becerra) condemned those same founding statements the other day, in an L.A. Times story by Tim Rutten asking why Cruz Bustamente couldn't just do likewise, and move on to more pressing issues (like imposing price controls on gas, presumably).

[R C Dean]

Dang. I wish I had a representative with the perfectly wonderful name of "LaBonge." Is that pronounced the way I hope it is? The potential for ads, bumperstickers, logos, etc. is unlimited.

"You deserve LaBonge!"

[Matt Welch]

R C -- Regrettably, it rhymes with "La Ganj" ...

[joe]

I understand complaining about "Senator Pothole," but aren't pothole politics what City Councils are for?

[dhex]

not being in california i have a question: what is Aztlan? i mean, i know it's the aztec GoE but wtf does that have to do with california?

[Lefty]

For the record, I am strongly in favor of Lap dances. I don't think they do it much but I see no harm.

[rich]

RC -- the problem isn't a the concil's orientation as much as the fact that their $130,000 a year rests on keeping wealthy homeowners happy. The same wealthy homeowners who spearheaded this asinine legislation.