By: George Kuykendall

Yes, Memphis, it’s springtime again! Heralding spring are dogwoods, redbud trees, azaleas, Bradford pears - and baseball. By the time you read this, spring will have faded into summer but baseball will still be going strong. Even in the fall and winter, practice and conditioning will be going on at Gameday Baseball and First Tennessee Fields, located at Fisher Steel Road and Germantown Parkway.

On March 31, 2011, a press release from Gameday Baseball and First Tennessee Fields stated that March 2011 was the facility’s largest March attendance on record with 18,000 visitors from 68 teams, with 34 teams coming from outside of the Memphis area. In 2010, 86,000 out-of-town visitors contributed $17 million to the local economy through events at this facility. 40 multi-day youth baseball and softball tournaments have been added for 2011, the most ever. First Tennessee Fields is home to the Southwest Tennessee Community College baseball team, baseball and softball workshops, and host for the Memphis Returning Baseball to the Inner City Championship (RBI).

Gameday’s First Tennessee Fields, Gameday Baseball, and Gameday Softball are operating entities of the not-for-profit Gameday Healthy Kids Foundation. In addition two nationally televised championship games, one in youth baseball and one in women’s fast pitch softball are broadcast nationally bringing a positive image of our community nation wide.

Stimulating the economy and the health and athleticism of young people - what an asset to our City and the community at large! Expansion plans are on the table to continue the growth of this world-class youth complex.

Right across Fisher Steel Road, barely a foul ball away, is Stella Marris Coastal Cuisine & Lounge. This brand new building was closed shortly after opening. The reason it closed was said to be remodeling and addition of parking spaces, which has not yet been completed. Most of the people in Cordova and Memphis are in total agreement that the owner will attempt to reopen as a strip club. Several weeks ago the owner applied for a Compensated Dance Permit, which is the first step in becoming an adult business. The permit was denied and the owner launched a court battle. The City Council passed a 60-day moratorium that will not allow any Compensated Dance Permits to be issued during that time.

To muddy the waters even more, the State of Tennessee and Shelby County have a licensing law that was drafted months ago but has not yet been able to be put into effect because of legal scheming of the collective club owners . The club owners obviously do not like the law, which has been ruled Constitutional in federal court on two separate occasions on two separate appeals. The club owners’ third round of lawsuits is asking for the status and clear definition of a “bikini bar.” If it is found that a bikini bar isn’t under the same laws as adult businesses, all the club owners will rush to apply for bikini bar permits and continue to operate as normal.

In this case, “normal” means all the ugliness, crime, drugs, prostitution and all the other collateral blight that goes along with adult businesses.

So, if you can follow all the connections, turns, and legal terms then you have the answer to what is going on with Stella Marris - right across the street from a wonderful family-orientated sports complex that is community - and civic-minded.

The perfect solution to all of this is would be a judicial ruling that a bikini bar is an adult business. That would allow City and County to bring regulation of all adult clubs together under compliance of laws that are suitable and fair to all.

From the Main Street Journal

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A local community values organization is outraged over a clothing store's catalogue. They say Abercrombie & Fitch is selling sex, not clothes, and it's not something young people need to see.

9 years ago the group was part of a nationwide effort that got the catalogue pulled from shelves and they're ready to make it happen again.

Walk inside Abercrombie & Fitch and you'll see a lot of trendy clothes. But go just past their front door or up to their check out counter and you'll see a new clothing 'catalog' from Abercrombie & Fitch called 'A&F Quarterly.' The problem some have with it is plain to see.

There are very few clothes in the catalog, but a lot of skin with many male and female models fully exposed. The book is wrapped in plastic with a warning sticker on the back, and sold for $10 to anyone over 18.

A similar catalog was on A&F shelves 9 years ago, but was taken off quickly because of public outrage. George Kuykendall with Citizens for Community Values Memphis said nothing's changed, and called the catalog a soft-pornographic magazine that can be easily seen and accessed by children.

"There's no clothes for sale in there at all, it's just selling sex - and sex sells as we know," said Kuykendall. "I can't believe a business like that would stoop that low, but obviously they have."

Abercrombie & Fitch did not return FOX13's phone calls for comment.

I am by no means an expert on daytime television. I’m way too busy to watch it and even if I did have the time it wouldn’t interest me. Despite my ambivalence towards daytime TV, there is one saying I’ve heard that I like. It comes from Dr Phil… “How’s that working for you?” The good Dr. says this line after listening to a guest defend all the destructive behaviors that have destroyed their life. Dr. Phil listens and then says something like this… “Let’s see, you’re bankrupt, your kids hate you and your wife is about to leave you… so how’s that working for you?” Inevitably the guest drops their head and agrees it’s time for a change.

Memphians, I’m here to suggest it’s time we also change a few things. If our city were a Dr. Phil guest he would have plenty of ammo to use against us. This year we were named by Forbes Magazine as the Second Most Miserable City to live in and the Second Most Dangerous City to live in. In 2006, Memphis had the most violent crimes of any city per capita in the United States. I could give you more depressing lists but I think it’s safe to say our city has fallen dramatically since the days it routinely won America’s Cleanest City award. With those depressing numbers as a backdrop, I think we all agree that we should do everything in our power to rid this city of its horrible crime reputation. We should all agree but there are a few powerful people who want to keep the status quo in at least one area that causes crime. That area is strip clubs and Memphis has the least regulated strip club industry in the United States.

We at the Citizens for Community Values are not trying to shut down strip clubs, we are merely trying to bring them under the laws that strip clubs operate in the rest of our state. Why do we want to do this? There are lots of reasons, but one of the main ones is that under-regulated strip clubs lead to more crime. If you don’t believe us maybe you will believe Duncan Associates, a firm the city and county retained to study our adult oriented businesses. In their report, they point out numerous studies that prove strip clubs are harbingers for drug-related, sex-related and even violent crimes. These studies were done on the highly-regulated strip clubs you find elsewhere. If it’s that bad in those regulated places just think how much crime the strip clubs around here produce. Since this is a family newspaper I won’t mention some of the specifics the firms investigators saw when they visited our cities clubs but suffice to say they were stunned. Listen to a few quotes from the report… “More crass presentation of sex (as opposed to erotic dancing) than we have seen in any group of clubs in any other city — and that includes our work in Detroit.” “The available crime data clearly understates law-breaking activity at these establishments. We personally witnessed dozens, if not hundreds, of violations.” Interesting, they compared Detroit to Memphis. Detroit also finishes alongside Memphis on these misery lists.

Why are the Memphis strip clubs so under-regulated? In 1996, lawyers for the strip club industry successfully had the cities adult business laws overturned because they were too vague. This left no specific regulations to govern the sex industry in Memphis. In 1998, the state passed a law governing strip clubs, but said each county or city must vote to adopt it as law. Nashville and other cities adopted the state laws, but Memphis did nothing! In 2007, the county commission spurred on by the Duncan report adopted the state law. The city of Memphis, wishing to change its horrible image, followed suit… right? Well not so fast. The city attorney with the backing of strip club industry lawyers, wealthy men and powerful politicians asked the club owners to re-write the ordinance. As you can imagine all the teeth from the state law were pulled out of the proposed city ordinance. The same lawyers also got an injunction halting the county from adopting the state law. Thankfully, the courts have ruled the state law constitutional. So now the same powerful folks are twisting the city councils arm to pass the lame ordinance written by the club owners.

So Memphians I ask you… “How’s this crime thing working for you?” Are you tired of the powerful few putting selfish interests above the good of the community? Well, we don’t have to put up with it anymore. Call the mayor, your councilperson, write letters to the editor and storm city hall. We the people will have to rise up to stem the rising tide of crime in this city. Will regulating the strip clubs solve all our problems… nope, is it a great place to start… yep! I wish to live in a city that once again is known for its cleanliness not its crime. We the people can make that happen!