San Diego to fight ruling letting strip clubs stay open

SAN DIEGO >> While California’s new stay-at-home order has shut down restaurant dining, shuttered salons and kept church services outside, two strip clubs in San Diego are still welcoming patrons nightly, protected by a court order.

San Diego County officials on Wednesday voted 3-2 to appeal the judge’s ruling that has allowed Pacer Showgirls International and Cheetahs Gentleman’s Club to stay open after the establishments sued the county and state over being ordered to close their doors.

The judge issued a preliminary injunction Nov. 6, protecting the establishments from enforcement actions by state and local officials, though the businesses must still adhere to a 10 p.m. curfew and close early.

San Diego Superior Court Judge Joel R. Wohlfeil sided with the clubs, saying adult live entertainment is “constitutionally protected speech” and said the harm would be greater to the businesses than to the government.

That argument set the strip clubs apart from restaurants or gyms, whose pleas to allow indoor activity was rejected by another San Diego judge last month when the county moved into the state’s most restrictive tier because of spiraling coronavirus cases. Superior Court Judge Kenneth Medel said that the potential harm from undercutting the state’s COVID-19 response outweighed damage to the affected businesses.

This week, San Diego along with most of the state was shut down even further as hospital bed capacity in intensive care units fell to dangerously low levels.

County officials said they cannot take action against the clubs while the injunction is in place even though there is a new stay-at-home order.

T he clubs sued the county in October after officials ordered them to close, saying live entertainment was not allowed under the public health order. Pacers received its cease-and- desist letter a few days after San Diego Padres outfielder Tommy Pham was stabbed in the club’s parking lot.

The clubs say they are operating safely by keeping dancers six feet or more apart and requiring everyone wear masks. Steve Hoffman, the attorney for Cheetah’s, said the business consulted with coronavirus experts who said there is no evidence of increased risk if dancing is allowed.

County officials said that’s not enough to comply with the new stay-at-home order, which bars members of different households from gathering.

“I’m guessing most folks aren’t going there with all the members of their household, so you have multiple households interacting together in a high-risk setting and so we ordered them closed,” Supervisor Nathan Fletcher told reporters Wednesday.