Fines paid, strip club and adult stores closed in Lake County

Fines paid, strip club and adult stores closed in Lake County
After long fight, Lake County gets paid last of money it’s owed by strip club, adult video shop and adult bookstore

By Georgia Garvey, Tribune reporter

March 24, 2010

Lake County struggled with some adult businesses — including two strip clubs — for more than a decade, fining the owners for breaking rules on getting licenses and for not closing their doors at midnight.

For several years after a court ruled the owners should pay more than $738,000, the debts remained outstanding. But County Board officials and the Lake County state's attorney's office recently announced the end of that saga, with a payment of more than $233,000 from the last business.

"It wasn't really a matter of whether we were going to collect from them; it was a matter of when," Assistant State's Attorney Dan Jasica said.

Some are calling the process a win for officials looking to regulate the county's two remaining adult establishments. Jasica said those businesses comply with county regulations, and, as far as he knows, are operating without crimes like prostitution that sometimes accompany adult establishments.

Suzi Schmidt, board chairman and adult use commissioner for the county, said having the owners of Video Magic finally pay the fines levied in 2007 is viewed by officials as a victory. It took patience but, she said, county officials and prosecutors had a single-minded purpose.

"I said, ‘We're going to collect.' ... The taxpayers shouldn't have paid for this," Schmidt said, referring to the protracted legal battle the county engaged in with the owners of Video Magic, Baby Dolls and 41 News, all at the corner of U.S. Highway 41 and Illinois Highway 173 near Wadsworth, and a strip club called Dancers on Lake Cook Road at U.S. Highway 12.

An adult bookstore, 41 News, is the only one remaining. Video Magic was an adult video store; Baby Dolls was a strip club.

The county amended its adult use ordinance in 1998, Schmidt said, to make it stricter. At the time, Jasica said, the businesses were warned they weren't complying with some of the new rules that included a ban on enclosed peep show booths and a minimum distance between dancers and customers.

The businesses sued the county, claiming they were being targeted for closure and that the ordinance was unconstitutional. In 2003, a county judge upheld the law, as did the Illinois Appellate Court.

Louis Pissios, an attorney who represented Video Magic and Baby Dolls, said the ordinance was ridiculous, banning conversations, physical interactions and direct tipping from customer to dancer. And one of the owners had testified that 70 percent of his business took place after midnight.

"We spent a long time fighting about the constitutionality of the ordinance," Pissios said. The new rules, he said, were "just designed to put adult entertainment out of business."

After the courts ruled in the county's favor, the four businesses would have had to apply for the licenses they had been fighting. Instead, three closed.

"They'd been there for 30 years. They'd employed hundreds and hundreds of people," Pissios said of his two clients.

Schmidt disagreed that the county tried to shut down the businesses. She said she just wanted them to play fair.

"I wasn't out to get anybody," she said. "They weren't following the ordinance."

And though residents may not have joined in the court battles, some are more than pleased the businesses wound up shuttered.

Wadsworth Mayor Glenn Ryback said many people mistakenly thought three of the businesses were in his community. He also worried that strip clubs and pornographic bookstores didn't display the proper image to visitors fresh over the Wisconsin border.

"If it has to be there, I would like to see it somewhere in a less visible location," Ryback said. He doesn't condone the businesses anywhere, he said, but knows communities are hamstrung constitutionally in the types of restrictions they can enact. Adult businesses "just cannot be regulated away."

Roger Handyside, pastor of Cornerstone Community Church in Wadsworth, said he prayed every time he drove past them.

They were "blight(s) on the area, because of what they traffic in," Handyside said. Driving past one of the businesses' signs, he often saw the face of a woman he'd known when she was younger.

"Every time I went by there, it just tore me up," he said.

ggarvey@tribune.com

Freelance reporter Ralph Zahorik contributed to this report.

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