So now the court, or at least the one where Hillsborough County Judge Elvin Martinez holds forth, has thrown out Tampa’s lap-dance law as unconstitutional. Too broad. Public health or safety, said Martinez, are not at risk from lap dancing. Some marriages, perhaps, but that’s outside the ambit of the law.
For those scoring at home, that’s one out of four, because the other three county judges hearing lap-dance cases — which are alphabetically assigned — have ruled otherwise. Ultimately, of course, this unappealing issue is headed for appellate court.
For now, however, it means arrested patrons with last names beginning with the letters C, I, K, R and T, will be brought before Judge Martinez. Talk about the letter of the law.
Perhaps it’s generational, because I don’t get it. The way I didn’t get “The Blair Witch Project” or the way I don’t get Derek Washington’s art. Maybe I’m missing the “edgy” gene. But hopefully taste and standards are valid factors.
Anyway, I’m now talking about the recent, week-long “Spike and Mike’s Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation” over at Tampa Theater.
Summarized St. Petersburg Times film critic (and “Blair Witch” apologist) Steve Persall: “Nothing is out of bounds, from physical deformities and child abuse to religious icons and unnatural sex. Graphic drawings of genitalia and body wastes and fluids are common threads