Fort Walton Beach Council minutes — 04-26-1982 Special — reading text

imposing his moral ethical system which was more severe than those people there at the meeting. He said if they would vote against the ordinance it would put one more stop to the erosion of independent freedom and the suppression of individual freedom by. moral codes that have no balance to the social structure of the community. He said if they voted against the ordinance he would support them and his friends would support them and he believed his friends and ey that would support him were in the majority of this community. Hank Qwens asked. Council to think about the kids when they grew up. He asked Council to do something please. Jim Elledge a resident of Fort Walton Beach since 1979, saying he had lived in ‘Hawaii and had been in the military for 20 years. He compared the two states as being vacation places. He asked which one of God's ten commandments were the people in the establishments violating - saying there were only ten commandments that we should all be concerned with. He said after that everything else was immaterial. He said drinking, smoking, or nudity was not one of the ten. He said there was adultery and. "coveting they neighbor's wife’ He noted Zion, I11., about the size of Fort Walton Beach banned alcohol, because it was bad. He said it was bad if you drank too much of it. and you could make a fool of yourself when you. did so or kill someone but in taking off all your clothes you were not going to kill anybody. He said Hawaii's crime rate had not gone up and he. quoted from the World Almanac statistics for Hawaii and Florida. He said we did not want a bad community ~ . but he did not think the nudity was the thing; that you could see it on.TV; he mentioned adultery and murder, saying we watched Dallas and loved it and it was murder and adultery. He said as far as nudity he felt they were going after the rabbits and not the lions and tigers and he mentioned the near nudity you saw at the beaches. He said in Fort Walton Beach Square and Santa Rosa Mall you could buy have in color and illustrated books on sex, graphically illustrated noting there were 11 million subscribers to Playboy Magazine and that was more than the state of Florida population wise. He felt there should be some law broken of. God's before they tried have a law to abolish nudity. Fred Smith, a bartender from Sammy's said he felt he was being condemned without trial. He asked how the people in the audience knew what was going on in the place if they had not been in themselves. He submitted a petition of 800 names who objected to the ordinance. He asked that people come in and see for themselves and that the ordinance would put them out of business and him out of a job. Mayor asked if none of those things were going on in the business, then what he had to fear from it. He said he had never seen fornica- Fred Smith Mr. Farrell Tom Moseley Stephanie Owens 4-26-82 983 tion. The Mayor said then they would have nothing to fear from the ordinance. . Mr. Farrell said he had lived in Fort Walton Beach 5 years and he was against the ordinance. He said he did not know if some type of ordinance were needed or not. He noted Mr. Miller's comments. and he himself felt there were some things in the ordinance that were very very wrong. He noted Section II, Paragraph B saying the narrow definition of what was written he would say that any woman who had a drink in the public in Fort Walton Beach was subject to arrest if she were wearing some of the latest fashions. He noted it would be up to the policeman's discretion a legalistic interpretation of that section made that possible. He noted Paragraph E was objectionable. He thought the wording was poorly thought out. He said those were only his narrow criticisms of the ordinance. He noted the conduct described in Section 3 and asked if there were any evidences of that type conduct. He asked for evidence they had exclusive of the alcoholic excessiveness had resulted in a violation of law. He noted Mr. Miller had said they had some offence records from the Police Dept. and he would like to hear them. Mr.Miller said the exhibit he had given to the recorder to attach was a comparative of police calls and did not have any dispositions on it - to four establishments in the community. He said it was too long to read but could not be generalized from the content of it. Mr. Miller said his purpose for attaching that and for a portion of his comments at the last meeting was that he agreed that the ordinance called on Council to make a finding of fact and they did not have any evidence before them to extract that information so they could draw those conclusions. Mr. Farrell said some of the things were engaged in and some were not and he thought it would affect the local businesses in town because of certain sections of the ordinance. Tom Moseley said he had been in the Air Force 22% years and had been all over the world and the United States. He said he had been in topless bars, bottomless bars, he had drunk beer in bars he had talked with the innocent dancers, watched the innocent dancers and talked with the innocent owners of the innocent bars and he must truthfully say he never walked out of of any bar a better person than when he walked in. He said he knew there were economic reasons for not wanting this passed and legalistic views had been expressed by all. He said he would not go to the bars again and if he had it to do over he would not because he still had those pictures in his mind and it did not build him up but tore him down. He said this was more than a moral issue; it was Godliness, he noted God was recording the meeting just’ as the recorder was, and that someday this was going to be recalled. Stephanie Owens saying that someone had said the Country was founded on freedom and it was but also very important in that freedom to worship God in the way they choose and the Country had been blessed because of this and she felt this was one of the reasons Council should be supporting the ordinance. She noted Mr. Bishop had asked her to serve on the advisory council - for the VoTech School and it seemed that her purpose and his was to help kids that were bad off. Not supporting the ordinance was 284 Stephanie Owens Ms. Stamps Debbie Melvin Marvin Butler Ken Murie 4-26-82 the opposite of what they were trying.to.do. She said she would not want her children to go in those bars if she had any. She felt the Council was elected to protect her rights and the majority of the people present represented support for the ordinance. She felt they should pay attention to that fact. She noted the ordinance would not legislate obscenity but she felt it the first step. Ms. Stamps said she had worked for Sammy's for 7 years and she had raised 2 children and her boys were raised in the finest Christian Schools and she had worked with these girls that were dancers and they were not prostitutes and they were not handling dope. She said dope, rape and murder went on all -the time on the beaches everywhere, not just in clubs and people that don't want to go to those clubs don't have to go. She said that was their right as these people have a right to work there. They were raising their children the best they could; they would do anything if their children were hungry; they were not out on the streets they were doing the best they could. She said God gave us the choice; we had a choice live right or to live wrong. Debbie Melvin said she had worked at every one of these places for the past 2 years and the girls did not do anything but take their tops off and dance. She didn't think anybody had a right to tell her what is right or wrong saying that God would get down to that later. She didn't feel anyone there had the right to administer the law, she thought God would do that later. Marvin Butler who said he was a general medical officer saying that topless dancing, the things going on in the nightclubs were not innocent fun, that they did destructive damage and he could testify to that as since for about 4 years of counseling and one of the recurring local problems he found increasing was male impotence at an early onset. He attributed this increase to de-sensitization (at younger ages) constantly receiving visual stimulants and sensuality the male mind is not able to appreciate the God given quality that was designed for the marriage and the marriage bed - the appreciation for his wife. He also mentioned promiscuity and the Herpes disease which ‘is. incurable. He said it was not innocent. He said they were present to protect people; saying the end result of this kind of lifestyle would be ruin not only in this life but potentially damnation in the next life. Ken Murie, 195 RoseMarie Lane voiced the opinion of his congregation - that they were for the ordinance and that they would like to see Councilpass this ordinance and to legislate some morality. He asked who stood the most to gain by not passing the ordinance and asked who was going to loose if it were passed. He said if the clubs were not violating any state ordinance would not loose but on the other hand if there were a possibility of sexual looseness were to go on then they would not want it passed. He urged Council on behalf of his congregation to pass the ordinance. He felt you should not wait till a crime was committed before you pass a law making it illegal. 4-26-82 : 285 Connie Inman Connie Inman originally from Nashville, Tenn. saying she had moved here from Houston, Texas, and she had worked for a lawyer and had done office work saying she was a dancer working at Sammy's and she had worked in a few other clubs and it was the cleanest club as far as the ladies she worked with. She said she was raised in a Christian family and she had gone to church every Sundy and had nothing against that but everybody had that choice to live their life as they wished; if people wanted to come into the clubs that was fine. She said the club was clean as far as the way it was run. Mayor Mayor said she probably received as many calls and letters as anybody on Council on what’ the feeling is and that was not the only letter, but she brought that one because she felt it brought up an issue that really had not been touched too much and that was how this might very well affect the tourist business. She said Fort Walton Beach's business was tourism, and we wanted the type of tourists that we had been having who come with their families to stay. She felt everyone had been given the opportunity to speak. Motion to table Mr. Franklin moved after hearing all of the comments from the Councilmen,and audience that they needed to do some more work on the ordinance, he thought the people in the audience must also consider that there were county residents and with our boundaries being helter-skelter the operations of these establishmmts could be moved two or three blocks one place, seven blocks another place and carry on. He encouraged them if they felt so strong about this ordinance to approach the County and for that reason there were some things’ in the ordinance pointed out by Mr. Miller which were covered in state statutes and he moved the ordinance be tabled until they could work further on it. The motion died for lack of a second. Mr. Baughman offered a substitute motion, saying that at no point had they asked anyone to close down one of these places or to put anybody out of work, but had asked in the spirit of the American way of life was a compromise between totally unlimited behavior and he was not saying it always went on but he felt it sometimes did. He felt it was suggesting as a compromise it provided some basic limits that he felt anyone in the room should be able to agree with. Mr. Baughman moved to approve the ordinance and refer it to the Council the following night for first reading. Motion seconded by Mr. Grant Motion to approve Mr.