Zoning, EMTs, and puritans

When creating a sex club there are some issues unique to the “industry”. Probably the biggest problem sex clubs have is zoning. This case from Arlington Texas is a typical example:

The operators of a swingers club at an upscale north Arlington home say they will fight the city’s efforts to shut down their weekend parties.

On Wednesday, Arlington officials sent the owners of the house in the 2400 block of North Cooper Street a letter telling them to shut down immediately, accusing them of illegally operating a home-based business.

The clubs in our area tell me they work with local officials and generally have no problems of this type.

Aside from zoning there are things of importance that need to be thought through and have some sort of plan in place for the operators and patrons of the clubs.

The biggest issue that I know of which happened at Club Pyrite is one time a woman had a medial emergency. The ambulance EMTs had what seemed to be a rather large escort from the police. We suspected it was because they wanted to see what it was like inside the club but we don’t really know for sure.

I was at the club at the time. While someone was calling 911 other people were notifying people in the club the EMTs, and probably police, would be showing up soon and to leave if we didn’t want to be there. We were welcome to stay and were told the path the emergency responders would be taking. We were asked to stay out of the area so they could have room to get the stretcher in and out. It was suggested we might want to be dressed, but again it was our choice.

I was sitting in the hot tub and the time which had a view of the locker room entrance where the woman collapsed. I elected to stay in the hot tub and see how it all went down. I watched the EMTs and police arrive, the woman leave on a stretcher, and then the police leave after asking a few questions of some of the people who witnessed the woman collapse. It seemed to be handled professionally as near as I could tell.

Jo and I saw the police at the club one other time when some guy got upset about something, was asked to leave, and things didn’t go as smoothly as they should have. The police arrived in the parking lot and made sure the guy left the property.

I have heard of cases in other states where there have been police raids on clubs. Sometimes there have been accusations of sex for money and other times alcohol and nudity issues. But people in the lifestyle always have the suspicion that it’s really a puritan issue where the authorities are afraid that someone, somewhere, is having fun.