Marty Denzer/Key photo Protesters pray the rosary in front of Temptations strip club on May 20. The club's owners had applied to the City Council for approval to expand into the building next door and obtain a liquor license.

The sign is the hallmark of Temptations strip club at 1517 Grand.

On May 20, about 45 people gathered under the sign during the late afternoon rush hour, on their knees praying the rosary, singing hymns and waving signs that read, "Stop strip club expansion."

Temptations opened in 1976, first as an adult theater, then as a strip club. In 2005, it became a franchise of Penthouse Gentlemen's Clubs, a division of the mens' magazine publishing company. The club's owners applied to the city council for approval to expand within their existing building site. It was approved because the applied-for expansion fell within the parameters of the legal non-conformance certification they had been granted in 1999, grandfathering the club under new zoning ordinances. Legal non-conformance means a use or activity which was legal when it commenced but was made non-conforming by a subsequently enacted zoning ordinance. The area had been rezoned in the late 1990s for commercial-mixed and light industry uses.

Some months ago, Temptations' owners filed a proposal with the Kansas City City Council to obtain a liquor license and expand into a recently vacated building next door. Penthouse officials supported the proposed expansion and application to serve alcohol because the club's proximity to the Sprint Center, the new Power and Light District, and the Crown Center Hotel complex would likely generate business.

Nearby business owners didn't object because part of the proposal stated, in exchange for acquiring a liquor license, the "Totally Nude" sign would come down. That was because female dancers employed by the club would have to be partly clothed if alcohol was served. Also, the age limit would be raised to 21.

Several faith-based groups, including the Human Rights and Respect Life offices of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, the office of Social Justice of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas, and members of the local Catholic community, laity and religious, on both sides of the state line, protested the club's proposal on the bases of morality and potential blight in the area.

Alliance Defense Fund (a non-profit Christian advocacy and litigation group) attorney Jim Jenkins, working with Phillip Cosby, executive director of the Kansas City chapter of the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families, presented more than 1,500 pages of evidence opposing the expansion proposal to the city council's Planning and Zoning Committee, headed by Councilman Terry Riley. Over the course of several hearings, the committee heard testimony from Tom Coyle, director, and Virginia Walsh, manager of the City Planning and Development office; Richard Bryant, an attorney for the club's owners, and several local businessmen on behalf of the club.

In March, a zoning ordinance amendment fact sheet had been prepared by Walsh, giving details about the proposed strip club expansion and liquor license application. Her recommendation was for the planning and zoning committee to approve the expansion proposal. On the final page of the 4-page document, the question is asked, "Is it good for the children?" Walsh had checked "Yes."

Opposing testimony was heard from Jenkins, Cosby, Jerry Young of the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocesan Human Rights Office, Bill Scholl of the Social Justice Office of the Kansas City, Kan., archdiocese, Lamar Hunt, Jr., community leader Anita Gorman and more than a dozen other men and women. Another 110 people attended the City Council session where testimony was heard.

A letter from both Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocesan Bishop Robert Finn and Kansas City, Kansas Archbishop Joseph Naumann was sent to the planning and zoning committee in March, expressing "grave concern and even alarm" over the proposed changes to the strip club and the effect they might have on the "burgeoning family-friendly atmosphere of the downtown community."

"Sexually oriented businesses and family fare simply do not mix. Be assured that families will lose patience with downtown if the city is unable to find a way to remove this lurid establishment from the area. It will not matter how much the proprietors promise to provide a classy establishment if, in fact, it denigrates human dignity and family values. Families will not play in a park with a poisonous snake."

"You have before you a choice: you can allow the spread and growth of a strip club that not only treats women as objects but also pollutes the surrounding moral environment, or you can continue to create a family-friendly city that affirms and stands up for human dignity."

The bishops' letter, more than 2,400 e-mails and letters sent to the committee from people all over the city, and several prayer protests in front of Temptations, impelled Riley and the committee members to recommend holding the rezoning ordinance proposal on the docket several times while they gathered information. The committee planned to make a recommendation at its weekly meeting May 21.

While the committee was tabling the proposal, gathering information and legal advice, men and women opposing the expansion of the strip club gathered several times to pray and protest. During the May 20 rosary protest, Cosby received word that the planning and zoning committee had decided that the zoning change would be held "off the committee docket," which effectively killed the proposal, at least for the time being.

According to Cosby, the committee had learned that while Temptations was grandfathered in under a legal non-conforming use status in the building at 1517 Grand, current zoning ordinance prohibits them from expanding into the adjacent building, which is zoned for commercial or light industrial use, not adult entertainment. There is also a residential building within 250 feet of the strip club.

Riley also said there was concern that if the Temptations proposal was approved, other sexually oriented businesses might try to open in the central business district. Bazooka's Strip Club, located less than the zoning requirement of 1,500 feet from Temptations, is already zoned CX, adult entertainment.

According to Jerry Young, though there is talk of Temptations reapplying for rezoning and an expansion permit, and a liquor license, the issue is dead for the moment.

"What now? We wait and see," Young said. "My sense is they will not reapply. There is talk of looking at banning nude dancing in Kansas City. We have some city council support for this but no ordinance yet. The church's role on this issue is to support, not lead, the effort to ban nude dancing. The National Coalition for Protection of Children and Families is the lead organization in the coalition," he said.

Young continued, "'Family fare and sexually oriented businesses do not mix.' This statement was the point of the letter from both bishops to the Planning and Zoning Committee. One can only look the River Quay area here in Kansas City in the 1970's." Young was referring to the increase in crime and illegal activities that followed zoning changes allowing strip clubs and the like in those areas. The River Quay, now part of the City Market downtown, a popular nightspot in the early 1970s, was almost destroyed when a mob war developed and three retaurants were burned or blown up and several local Mafia capos were killed.

"This (Temptation's) zoning was stopped by ordinary people," Young said, "who took the time to speak up."

END