Mary Lou Montes Zijderveld
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08/05/02  Not the City Attorney, Police Chief or County DA!

The bad guys know they are up against an incompetent city attorney, a Police Chief with a questionable history of commitment to enforcing public lewdness laws, a District Attorney who won't prosecute prostitutes and Judges who either side with the perverts or hold important cases until after elections.  So, the bad guys pretty much do whatever they want.

These days Dallas citizens are stuck between the law breakers and law non-enforcers.  

Residents from several neighborhoods in the Bachman to Walnut Hill area met to report on various happenings -- everything from the sexually oriented businesses (SOB's) to street walkers to drug dealing to gang activity to non-conforming businesses.  There absolutely is a common thread linking all those elements -- little or no enforcement of city or state laws. 

The meeting's original agenda had been to prioritize items for our state representatives in the upcoming legislative session.  After one horror story after another, people started suggesting new laws that could control the problems.  Gary Turner put the whole thing in perspective by saying "We don't need new laws -- we need to enforce the laws we have."  Simple truth!

We don't need new zoning laws to further restrict locations of sex clubs.  We aren't enforcing the 1,000 feet separation law now.   No way is there 1,000 feet between Mary Poss's Le Bare Club and the Platinum Club or the Dallas Gentlemen's Club (NW Hwy west of Stemmons).  Poss got Le Bare out of her district by moving them to District 6 with the apparent approval or at least acquiescence of former Council member Barbara Mallory Caraway.  Ed Oakley wasn't in office when that little maneuver happened.   

How did 3 sex clubs wind up so close to each other?  Because no one is enforcing zoning laws against the sex clubs.  Remember former Councilmen Don Hicks and Bob Stimson wanted to create a red light district on NW Highway.  Guess they had things in motion behind the scenes.

We don't need new health code laws to shut down the bath houses on Royal Lane.  We could close down many of them tomorrow, if we enforced our Health Code.   These places are worse than anything you would see on Bourbon St. in New Orleans.  All of those massage parlors, tanning salons, saunas on Royal Lane are "bath houses".

But say we did need some new state regulations or local regulations, what difference would it make?  We could move heaven and earth to get the votes needed for a new law like the anti-prostitution bill that sends a hooker to prison after 3 convictions.  If the DA refuses to prosecute the hookers, there will not be 3 convictions.

You can't blame it on the rank and file police officers.  They take cleaning up our streets seriously.  They know better than anyone there's a connection between sex clubs and prostitution and drug dealing, etc., but they are not the District Attorney.  Last Saturday night, they were out in force on Walnut Hill, busting hookers, pimps and their customers.  

But - but - but, the presence of cops did not deter perverts from walking into the S S S spa where you get sauna, shower and more as advertised right on their business sign.  Multiple squad cars and a jail van did not bother perverts going to the "Adult - Live Nudes" club, and those perverts are not going in there to "just look" at naked women.

One attendee at the community meeting ("Larry") works for a big Ft. Worth company.  A fellow worker didn't know about Larry's involvement in trying to clean up the Bachman/Walnut Hill area.  The guy actually told Larry that he had taken his son (just back from Afghanistan) to one of the all nude clubs on Harry Hines.  He told Larry the girls were really naked.  Then he told Larry that both he and his son got "serviced" under the table by two girls.  Can you believe where we are that a man would even acknowledge, much less brag about something like that?  What a great dad and husband that horn dog must be!

But, the example that pervert is setting for his son is not the issue either.  It's the blatant disregard for our laws.  We have a "no touching" law between the whores who "dance" in the sex clubs and the perverts who frequent the sex clubs.  There is no enforcement.   We have District Judge Evans who will not rule on an important case.  We have Courts ruling that the sex clubs cannot be held responsible if their contract labor (the dancing whores) touch or get touched by the patrons, including oral sex, hand assistance, etc.  The dancing whores are no longer "employees" of the clubs.

How does that work?  If you provide the stage, the security, the booze, everything else, how is some slut walking around nude, doing whatever to your customers not your employee?  If she is not your employee, how come she is allowed to do that stuff in your club and how come you have signs outside alluding to what she is going to do for the perverts when they come in your club?

There is a petty jurisdictional war going on between City Attorney "It's Not My fault" Johnson and "Deaf and Blind" DA Bill Hill.  Both blame the other for lack of prosecution relating to the sex clubs.  They are both failing Dallas taxpayers.

Now, It's Not My Fault Johnson is about to enter into a deal with the sex clubs to drop city prosecution of various cases against the clubs.  These cases involve everything from zoning violations to operating without proper license and permits to sexual contact between club patrons and club dancers (now considered contract labor).  

Do you understand what the city is doing?

We are about to agree to drop our cases against the sex clubs and they promise to move off NW Hwy at Bachman.  Guess where they are going?  Walnut Hill west of Stemmons, right next to the proposed terminal for those Mexican buses.  Walnut Hill, right where we already have brazen whores walking the streets on Saturday night.

The relocation is bad enough, but we are entering into a pact with the Devil.  These are lying, cheating white slavers and It's Not My Fault Johnson is going to take their word they will adhere to the terms of the agreement.  They haven't followed any rules in the past.  Why would we expect more now?  They are going to get another year of operation on NW Hwy at Bachman.  When the time comes for them to be gone, we have a whole new series of lawsuits.

That's why I get so wound up over adulation of Al Lipscomb.  The guy pimped prostitutes in California.  Went to prison for it!  Pimps are slave traders.  He traded desperate Black women for money.  He didn't stop his wicked ways just because he came back to Dallas and got religion.  Every time there was any controversy over sexually oriented businesses at City Hall, Old Al was a solid vote for the sex clubs.  Every time --  until a sex club tried to open up at Red Bird Mall.  He was out there with JW Price, et al picketing that club until they closed shop.

But for NW Highway, Old Al was the sex clubs' favorite council member.  Why else would Nick Rizos have singled Old Al out to bribe so cops would be ordered to stay out of his Caligula XXI club?  Old Al did so much damage to the Bachman-NW Hwy community for so little money -- $7,700.  Looks like his cohorts in crime did much better for themselves out of the deal than Old Al.  One is now a Chief of Police, and the bribe giver has one night club on NW Hwy (Bachman area) and a new sex club (The Lodge) on NW Hwy (West of Stemmons).

If you didn't read Tom Korosec's article referenced in Another Scam, please do.  Here's the link again, for your quick reference:

Inquiring Minds Why is ignorance such bliss for so many when it comes to Al Lipscomb? BY THOMAS KOROSEC

Dallas' daily has been singing an odd refrain lately. Dallas Morning News writers have been insisting that the city shouldn't worry its little head about a retrial of Al Lipscomb now that an appeals court has overturned the former city council member's federal bribery and conspiracy conviction on technical grounds. . . .   Journalists of a more curious bent, elected officials, would-be witnesses and others who have followed the details of the whole sordid matter wonder why the News is in such a hurry to put the Lipscomb story to bed when there's so much left to learn. . . . "Why did so many wealthy, white Dallas business leaders stuff Lipscomb's pockets with money?"  There is a second pending question as well.    Cindy Schoelen, former secretary to Dallas Police Chief Terrell Bolton, . . .  and Dallas Police Lieutenant John Sullivan say they testified to a grand jury that Bolton ordered Sullivan to a meeting in 1993 with Lipscomb and Nick Rizos, owner of the Caligula XXI topless club. The purpose was to discuss what Rizos considered "police harassment" of the club, which he wanted stopped.

We all know the identity of the "high ranking" police officer who assisted Old Al's assistance to Caligula Rizos.

There is a DMN story about crack down on corruption in New Orleans .

Corruption crackdown rivets New Orleans City sees hope in graft investigation 08/05/2002 By LEE HANCOCK / The Dallas Morning News

From back alleys to boardrooms, even the most jaded residents are saying that the big one may have finally hit. The city has been abuzz since police made dozens of arrests July 22 in what new Mayor Ray Nagin declared the opening salvo in a crusade to root out a "culture of corruption" at City Hall. . . . Criticism of the investigation has been muted. An organizer for the union representing about 2,000 of the city's 7,500 employees said many workers are demoralized.    "They feel like they're being deliberately humiliated, stigmatized and embarrassed for things they haven't done," said Wade Rathke, chief local organizer for the Service Employees International Union and New Orleans Public Workers Council.    He noted that some workers accused of taking $20 bribes are making $10,000 to $12,000 a year, and hundreds of other city workers are so poorly paid that they qualify for food stamps.  . . .  "It seems, relatively speaking, small potatoes. We're concerned. Certainly, where there's corruption, it needs to be rooted out," Mr. Rathke said. "You wonder what's next: a librarian that forgot to record a daily fine on a book, a garbage man who found a quarter on the street and didn't turn it in?" . . . "They gonna get the small ones. See what they got? The little minnow takes the fall for the big ones," said Revere Ondolph, a French Market fruit vendor. "Big fish, they'll be back doin' same thing they been doin' in six months' time."

That's the same mentality we have in Dallas.  That's the same mentality that condones what Old Al did to the independent taxi drivers and to the Bachman/Walnut Hill community.  He got so little money "relatively speaking" for so much damage.  All the big guys knew what he was doing.  Back in the late 80's when I was Lord Lori Palmer's appointee to the Plan Commission, she told me herself that the Schepps Dairy people were some of Old Al's benefactors.  

That's how we got in the mess of having open prostitution on the streets of Dallas, by not going after the small ones or the big ones.  That's why we now have these enormous whore houses on Stemmons Freeway -- the gateway to the city from DFW  -- by not enforcing our public lewdness laws or policing those sex clubs.  That's why we now have a billboard near the Market Center with a handsome pervert looking up a woman's skirt.  That's why we now have "businessmen" taking clients to the sex clubs and not feeling stigmatized.  

Not enforcing our existing "no touch" laws in the sex clubs is why we have a Ft. Worth horn dog dragging his son to Dallas for an under the table head job at an all nude Harry Hines dive.

I'm not saying It's Not My Fault Johnson or Deaf and Blind Hill have taken bribes or would ever take bribes -- big or small.  They are listening to people who have taken bribes or are paid lobbyists and lawyers for people who would pay bribes.  

Have you ever put a sack of potatoes away and forgot them before they went bad?  Honey, one little bad potato can raise a stink that takes weeks of scrubbing and disinfectants to remove.  That's why you keep them in the open and "supervised".  If our City Attorney and DA would just keep these businesses exposed and supervised, much of our problems would go away.  If the perverts and horn dogs know they are being watched, they will slink back into the shadows where they belong.  They are like cockroaches and get very bold and open when there's no effort to control and exterminate them.

We cannot control or exterminate prostitution without those with enforcement power doing their job.  The City Attorney is afraid to prosecute or appeal a sex club case because she knows that neither she nor most of her assistant attorneys are up to the job.  The DA refuses to prosecute prostitution cases because the hookers move around and leave town and it's tough to find them -- and the stuff doesn't happen in "nice neighborhoods" where he gets his votes.

So, we are back to where we started -- before the hundreds and hundreds of community meetings, before new, tougher anti-prostitution laws were enacted, back to when Old Al was taking bribes to stop police enforcement in the sex clubs.  Actually, things are worse.  Why?

Because we have no one with enforcement powers on our side.