I have lived in many places and never heard of a business being allowed just to paint a sign and open without a permit and highly doubt the city of St. Pete will allow it once they are notified. How do you know they don’t have a permit? Sounds like an easy fix..businesses should have an operators license from the city, if they don’t... it should be easy to shut down. Again I’m new to the area, but most cities operate similar. If you’re really concerned, head to the city with the address and do some research! You may find you’re correct they are illigal and then the city code enforcers can shut it down. Keep us posted :)

Perry, as you admitted you are “late to the party“! I am deeply involved with what goes on downtown. I have been in touch with the chief of police the head of zoning the head of codes… All of us in this neighborhood have been crying out in vain for them to shut the sugar room down which operated for almost a year without the proper permits and in some cases no permits, after having opened and done reconstruction without even those permits! Never mind the fact that it operates way beyond capacity for fire code. Trust me we’ve done everything , we’ve even communicated with Pam Bondi multiple times!!! I don’t know where you live exactly in the city but if you live south of the city you’re going to find that the city turns a blind eye to us many times. As multiple people have stated on this forum if this illegal strip club was operating beside the mayor’s house it would have not operated for almost an entire year ! And yes my statement is 100% true: you can take a building and you can open up any business you want and not get the proper permits and not only will you not be shut down for almost a year but you won’t get shut down at all unless somebody complains or your business operates during the day when the code officer’s are working. I have followed this illegal strip club from the date it opened till the day it closed and as I said i have contact with everybody possible and the unfortunate truth is the city has very little power and the police department has very little power to shut something down once it’s open. Whether this is true of just St. Petersburg I do not know I only know the one town I lived in in New Hampshire you can not even hang a sign outside without the code officer shutting you down IMMEDIATELY if you hadn’t had the right permit never mind open an illegal strip club and operate it till four in the morning!!

Thanks for the detailed info. Something is just not adding up. Doesn’t the city have code enforcers? It’s actually quite simple everywhere else... state and local operators license displayed at the location and if it’s not the biz is shut down. I don’t understand why St Pete would be so drastically different. Makes no sense to me. I do understand the North vs South argument here, which is just wrong, but an illegal business regardeles of location is illegal. So I guess my question is are you 100% sure they don’t have the proper license?

This is really frustrating. Has anyone reached out to the city council person for the area for assistance?

Perry , NO more strip clubs are allowed in St Pete proper. Period. They can’t have the “proper“ license because none exists! Boredhousewife , please see my earlier post… Every single person who could do anything about this has been contacted multiple times, the zoning and code and police department are all working together which is the ONLY reason the sugar room finally got closed down. Elizabeth.Abernethy@stpete.org , head of zoning. James.Corbett@stpete.org , head of codes. Perry , feel free to email them to verify what I have told you. I emailed her Friday night and informed her of the place opening back up and she immediately contacted the police department. Now the police department is working on it but , what you don’t seem to understand is they can’t literally just go and close the place down… They need to get court orders and those things take months to secure. The solution to this not happening in the future is to not allow these places to open without the proper permits, not sure if that means more staff in the codes and zoning department or what. I can tell you instead of protecting the tax paying citizens from issues such as this the codes department is sending out their staff to monitor garbage cans and giving people violations if they don’t take their garbage cans in immediately after the trash man comes… I commented about this when others complained on this forum. I was trying then as I’m trying now to make everyone understand there are bigger issues than trash bins being left on the curbside and there’s only so many city employees ; so do we want to worry about trash cans or illegal strip clubs? ( i’m not saying the trash cans should be left on the curbside 24/7 I’m just saying we need to pick and choose our battles! )

Thanks again for the detailed answer. What blows my mind is why does there have to be a process to close it... courts, papers etc... never heard of such a stupid process. If it’s not legal... code slaps a notice and done! That’s the way it’s handled in just about every other city. So it sounds like we need to have multiple people watching the space and if it opens again dozens of us need to call the police and inidate their
Phone lines. That followed up by visiting the city. I’m out of town at the momen, but would be happy to get involved. I’m sooooo curious to hear the city explain their position on this. Thanks again.

Very frustrating... just rode by there again (11pm) tonight and people are on the "porch" hanging out and cones are blocking the entrance. It's as if it's a "stand off". I have called sent letters (once a week for the past month to be exact) to the mayor's office, chief of police, code enforcement etc, ect, etc. Thought we had a 'handle" on it. And now this!! I will also be contacting the Salvation Army tomorrow. They have that nice shiny building and a lot of land, but they close the gates and have a No Trespassing signs everywhere so of course they (homeless, displaced) spill out to the streets. Just WRONG.So they mentioned above will get another letter sent out tomorrow and more phone calls and emails. Greasy wheel get's fixed the fasted. If we ALL continue to be on them eventually something has to give!! Right!!?? Perry I agree with you but like Goldenwolf stated this city turns a blind eye. Well I will do my share and bug the hell out of everyone because this HAS TO CHANGE!!!!!!

Sorry guys, I made some pretty good valid points on this forum and apparently they were rejected. What a joke. Truth hurt monitor???????

Maybe it will take another murder for this place to be shut down. Shame on you city..........

Why........may I ask , ARE BLOCKING my comments? They are nothing but the TRUTH. It's an illegal "club" and THERE WAS A MURDER IN THE PARKING LOT IN APRIL, basically in OUR front yard.21 rounds of casings....wake up folks....and FIX THE DAMN PROBLEM.

Shawny, would you share your contact info for all the different officials. Thank you!

Not sure of the economic status of the people on this forum , I know I’m not exactly swimming in extra cash, but maybe we should all get together and hire a lawyer? It’s very unfortunate that we should have to do so when our tax money is already paying for the city and police department to handle this issue for us but since they’re not going to do it and as I said even though I contacted Pam Bondi twice she just referred me back to the local police and codes so either we hire a lawyer or we hold an old fashion protest...... but then we would probably all get shot !

I would LOVE to hire an attorney, however WE pay these people to serve and protect and to look out for what is good for LAW ABIDING CITIZENS!. And I certainly will not protest.....love my life too much. Let's keep pressing.......I sent out another stack of letters today and left a message with the Salvation Army for closing their gates so the homeless can "spill" into our neighborhood. Keep writing, calling and emailing. I myself will forge on until there is action taken. I don't care how many nerves I get on.

I’m going to continue to write the mayors office and city council about the strip club and the homeless mess including that guy that they allow to live at the corner of 13th Ave S and 3rd St S. Just over it. Maybe it’s time for an 8 on your side visit to the area to show how the city has no regard for the south side.

I agree BoredHousewife....... keep calling and writing.

And Perry every week a letter goes to:

St. Petersburg Police Dept
1300 1st. Ave, N
St. Pete 33705

Sanitation Admin.
2001 28th St. North
St. Pete 33713

Mayor's Office
175 Fifth St., North
St. Pete, 33701

Codes and Compliance
3rd Floor
One 4th St. North
St. Pete, 33701

Housing and Community Affairs
MSC 9th Floor
One 4th St. North
St. Pete, 33701

Once a week ALL the ABOVE get sent a letter like clock work. Hence they are ALL NORTH. Well it's time for the SOUTH to stand up and be heard. WE DESERVE A SAFE NEIGHBORHOOD!!!! And calling 8 On Your Side sounds like a pretty good idea to me!!

Thank you! I will be sure to write and get others involved.

A little good news for the group...umbrella man at the corner of 3rd St S and 13th Ave S is gone including all his belongings. Hooray!!!

A small step int the right direction.....we just keep pushing!!!

I would also recommend emailing our city councilwoman Gina Driscoll at Gina.Driscoll@stpete.org AND you can contact every city council person at council@stpete.org

Tomorrow night. Thursday. 6:00. Bartlett Park Resource center , corner of 16th and MLK. Bartlett Park neighborhood association meeting! Probably won’t get much done about the strip club but it’s very important that we get as many people as possible to come to this because they’ve only been getting like two or three people and only TOGETHER are we going to make any changes around here. And I just spoke with the code department supervisor for our area and she is going to attend this meeting. So this would be a great meeting for everyone to attend and they only meet once a month so try to squeeze this in tomorrow night everybody!

I wish I would have known sooner. Where can I find the schedule for the meetings. So I can adjust my schedule and attend?

It seems to be hard to find the information on this meeting! When I attend this evening I will see what we can do about getting information out. However I believe it’s the third Thursday of every month at the research center at the corner of 16th Ave., South and MLK.

This issue has been marked as a duplicate of issue 4158950.

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