Ante Bilic is based in Saratoga. He owns four enterprises in
Sunnyvale. Now he wants to buy a restaurant, El Amigo, in Gilroy
and convert it into a strip club. He has spent $4,185 so far in his
quest for a permit. His request goes to the Planning Commission
next, then to City Council. This is a moral issue.
Ante Bilic is based in Saratoga. He owns four enterprises in Sunnyvale. Now he wants to buy a restaurant, El Amigo, in Gilroy and convert it into a strip club. He has spent $4,185 so far in his quest for a permit. His request goes to the Planning Commission next, then to City Council. This is a moral issue.
Oh, I will grant that there are monetary aspects. Let’s consider those first. El Amigo is failing, because the food is not good. Gilroy could use another good Mexican restaurant. La Victoria does well with good Mexican food; Chevy’s does well with good quasi-Mexican food; Super Tacqueria and Gaeta’s do well with their excellent burritos. Gilroyans routinely drive to San Juan Bautista to enjoy Dona Esther’s fine Mexican food. Gilroy could support another good Mexican restaurant, particularly so close to the Outlets, where Applebee’s and In-and-Out are always crowded.
A strip bar will probably prosper. It will therefore bring in tax revenue. On the other hand, Home Depot and Staples, in the same parking lot, will undoubtedly suffer losses: at least some of their customers will go to Lowe’s or Office Max rather than run a gauntlet of lechers. If their losses are severe enough, they will close, meaning job losses as well as losses in tax revenues.
Of course, Gilroy will have job openings for strippers. Note that although Ante Bilic is based in Saratoga, his topless bars and strip clubs are located in Sunnyvale. Did he even try to open one in Saratoga? If so, did Saratoga decide that a strip club was not an enterprise that fit the image of their city? If not, did even Bilic not want to sully his hometown with such an establishment? And how did Sunnyvale end up with four of them? Did they come in all at once? Or was it that once one was approved, the commission and council could not think of any plausible reason for denying a second, third, and fourth permit?
Ante Bilic has avoided charges and won labor lawsuits. He has never had a permit revoked. His dancers have sued him for unfair business practices. His club was searched by police in connection with a prostitution sting. Four dancers eventually pled guilty to lewd and lascivious acts in public – probably a plea bargain. How much did it cost the city of Sunnyvale in police time and court costs to handle these matters?
My husband routinely travels abroad on business: Denmark, France, Italy, Israel, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore. Wherever he goes, when he tells people where he is from, they smile, nod and say: “Oh, Gilroy… garlic.” For the last five years, he has been getting another response. Sometimes, they smile, nod, and say, “Oh, Gilroy … Outlets.” In five more years, they could be saying: “Oh, Gilroy … strip clubs.”
Monetary considerations, including considerations of damage to the city’s reputation, are all matters that should be considered by the Planning Commission. If the Planning Commission is short-sighted enough to approve this permit, then the City Council, as our representatives, must deny it.
It is popular to scoff at morality these days. Anyone with enough backbone to say that something is bad can expect to be jeered at for being judgmental. But judgment is just the ability to recognize that some things are good and other things are bad. And morality is either the immutable law of God or the distilled wisdom of millennia of experience.
Planning Commissioners and Councilmembers alike should be asking themselves three questions. Would you want your daughter to be working in a strip club? Would that be a good entry on her resume? And if it is not good enough for your daughter, why would it be good enough for any woman in Gilroy?
In 1996, a downtown bar, As de Oros, was busted for hiring a 17-year-old to lap dance. The girl’s 16- and 13-year-old sisters were in the bar watching her dance. The city council ended up spending hours and days and many, many dollars investigating this in a quasi-judicial procedure. Approving this permit will encourage the sexual exploitation of women and children. Just say no. Even if it is the moral thing to do.
Cynthia Anne Walker is a mother of three, a mathematics teacher and a former engineer. She is a published, independent author. Her column appears each Friday.
