THE MIAMI HERALD

MIAMI GARDENS

A Miami Gardens strip club will relocate close to an elementary school after the city OK's a zoning change.

The Miami Gardens City Council approved zoning changes that will allow a strip club to relocate. The relocation will bring Tootsie's Cabaret close to Hibiscus Elementary.

The 7th January decision by Mayor Shirley Gibson and five council members grants a special exception to the adult entertainment club to the state spacing requirement of 2,500 feet of an elementary school. The club will move from its current site at 19839 NW Second Ave. to 18201 NW Second Ave. The school is located five blocks north, at 18701 NW First Ave.

Ronald Book, an attorney representing Tootsie's owner Norm Hickmore, told the council at its new site the club would bring jobs and inject business into the area. "We will bring in close to 400 current employees and we will probably be expanding by 100 to 125 additional employees coming on the site -- again, enhancing the economic base of the community," Book told the council. "One of the things that we are looking at doing are tasteful cabaret shows . . . that are adult-family, couple-family oriented shows that will . . . draw people into the community to have and create energy."

Hickmore wants to move to the new site that would allow the club to nearly quadruple in size, expanding from its present space of 6,500 square feet to 25,000. Along with the move, a $4.5 million overhaul of the new location will follow, including planting trees around the property, Book said. The club will be located in a warehouse space previously occupied by a BJ's Club, in a shopping plaza, alongside a furniture shop, a traffic school and an insurance business.

The new club -- scheduled to be ready in nine to 10 months -- will be open between noon and 6 a.m., Book said. He disagreed the club will be close to Hibiscus Elementary, even though the text of the zoning amendments considered by the council called for: 'SPECIAL EXCEPTION of spacing requirements to permit an adult entertainment nightclub spaced less than the state spacing requirements of 2,500' from an elementary school. It is a long distance from the doors of BJ's wholesale warehouse to that school,'' Book said.

School officials said the new location would not affect day-to-day activities at Hibiscus Elementary. ''I don't think it will interfere with what we have going on in the school,'' Hibiscus Principal Michael Wagner said in a phone interview Thursday.

A six-lane thoroughfare -- Miami Gardens Drive -- and five blocks will separate the new club from the school. But the move led one resident to call on the city to review its policy toward adult entertainment. "'It's amazing to me how you can stand to make a cesspool appear to be a palace or you can make anything appear to be anything,"' Susie Canty, who identified herself as a teacher with 30 years of experience, told the council. "It's becoming that [State Road] 441 is beginning to look like an adult strip rodeo. You have an emporium down the street, you have something else here, and if you continue to sit back and let these things happen, there's no telling what's going to happen in our community."

Council members were concerned that new jobs at the club should go to Miami Gardens residents. Councilwoman Sharon Pritchett asked about the number of additional employees who would be hired from the city. "They're going to get some greater level of consideration," Book said. "We would much rather employ people from within the neighborhood."

Councilman Melvin Bratton suggested the club close an hour earlier, at 5 a.m., to reduce traffic but his proposal was not accepted.

Vice Mayor Aaron Campbell was not present at the meeting.

Campaign finance records show Campbell and the five council members who voted for the zoning change each received $500 from both Book and $500 from Lil Abner Corp., Tootsie's parent company, in the city's general election last June. Gibson received $500 from Book but none was recorded for her from Lil Abner. Lil Abner also made contributions of between $250 and $500 to at least five unsuccessful candidates, according to campaign reports filed with the elections department.