In an industrial part of the Bronx known as Hunts Point,
Giuliani-era zoning restrictions helped carve out a sort of mini
red light district. But recently the
city has been passive-aggressively targeting the area’s strip
clubs by going after their liquor licenses, according to
The New York Times. 

The move is part of a broader citywide crackdown on the strip
club industry: 

In the last several years, community leaders have found
increasing success petitioning the State Liquor Authority to revoke
the liquor licenses of numerous strip clubs in New York and deny
the applications of new clubs. The opponents cite crime, noise or
other quality-of-life issues, or highlight a club owner’s lack of
qualifications or possible criminal ties.

In other words, community leaders are trumping up charges and
relying on insinuations in order to use the state to shut down
businesses of which they disapprove. It’s an old trick, but
apparently still an effective one (cities tend to be all too happy
to find reasons to shut down strip clubs, anyway).

According to the Times, some clubs have continued to
operate sans alcohol—which does, as a result of other bizarre strip
club regulations, have the advantage of allowing dancers to be
fully nude. “But the resulting loss of customers makes clear that
the presence of alcohol is far more important than the absence of
pasties,” the Times notes cheekily.

Alcohol prohibition also zaps a major source of revenue for both
clubs and dancers (who at many clubs rely on earning a percentage
of the price of drinks that customers buy them). Bronx community
leaders are, of course, delighted by this. “They can’t make any
money if they don’t have a liquor license,” Rafael Salamanca, the
district manager of Bronx Community Board 2, gloated to the
Times. 

Going after their liquor licenses is easier in some cases than
others, however. For clubs where violence and trouble haven’t
manifested, the city is seeking out increasingly obscure and
technical reasons to deny or revoke alcohol privileges. The club
Platinum Pleasures had its liquor license revoked because it failed
to surrender it while temporarily shut down for construction and
for receiving $126,880 from “an unidentified interest.” The New
York Supreme Court upheld the State Liquor Authority’s decision to
revoke the license last week (the
building may now become a church).  

“I feel like we’re being censored,” said Jeff Levy, the
executive director of the Association of Club Executives of New
York, a trade and advocacy organization for the industry. “Just
because the community board or legislators don’t like this type of
entertainment doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

Community group and
politicans cite increased crime and other nuisances in areas
surrounding adult entertainment venues. But research on the issue
has been mixed. While studies funded by city governments and values
groups do tend to find correlations between strip clubs and crime,
numerous
studies have also shown the opposite. For instance, a 2004
Florida study found “rates of nude and semi-nude businesses” in
various counties
were not associated to increased property crimes, violent crimes,
or instances of rape.

University of California-Santa Barbara professor Daniel
Linz, who has done substantial research on the issue, says there
are problems with many of the studies that do purport to show huge
crime increases in areas around sexually-oriented businesses.
“Those studies that are scientifically credible demonstrate either
no negative secondary effects associated with adult businesses or a
reversal of the presumed negative effect,” he
told Salon in 2012. “We’ve done crime map after
crime map after crime map of many cities and there just aren’t
clusters of crime around [strip clubs]. Most crime in most cities
tends to occur around high schools.” 

Advocates of public education routinely
assert that greater government money and control are required to
fix what ails America’s schools. But as A. Barton Hinkle reports, a
public-private education partnership in Richmond, Virginia points
to a better solution: Forget the top-down formulas dictated by
bureaucrats in Washington or New York and focus on individually
tailored programs that treat every student differently.

View this article.

Club Med, of all places,
surveyed British parents to find out if they would take their kids
out of school for a vacation in defiance of laws that levy pretty
stiff fines on families that do just that. Almost half of
respondents said damned straight, some time with the family come
before staring at the chalkboard. That’s a nice reaffirmation of
healthy priorities, despite penalties that have cost some parents
the equivalent of a thousand dollars.

From a Club Med
press release:

Nearly half of parents (48%) would take their children out of
school to go skiing if it was cheaper, Club Med can reveal from
their official Ski Report-Skiing Together, Winter Sport Holidays
for Families, released today.

Despite the threat of fines from local authorities, British
families are keener than ever to take children out of school to
avoid the most expensive travelling weeks.

The findings from Club Med show that school isn’t always the
most important priority, but half of parents (48%) are inspired to
go skiing to challengetheir children to learn new skills.Over 40%
of parents choose skiing because it encourages them to bond as a
family, whilst over a quarter choose skiing for the physical
benefits–showing that children’s best interests are in mind even if
it means skipping the national curriculum.

Under the provisions of the Education
Act of 1996, parents have to ask school officials’ permission
to remove their kids from class outside a narrow range of
circumstances. Earlier this year, the Sutherland family, from
Trench, Telford, was
slapped with a £630 ($1,053) penalty for taking the wee ones to
Greece for a week without permission while school was in
session.

Stewart Sutherland, who chose a foreign country, ancient
culture, and the cradle of western civilization over hours in a
classroom, understandably said officials “don’t live in the real
world.”

I didn’t take my son skiiing or to Greece, last week, but I did
pull him out of school for two days so he could feed a tiger at a
safari park and tour Sinagua Indian ruins with his grandparents.
Fortunately, I didn’t need permission to give him a little
enriching family time.

It sounds as if a lot of British families might make the same
wise choice, even if they break a few rules along the way.

Out: Forcing minorities to
endure humiliating, pointless stop-and-frisk treatment from New
York City cops. In: Destroying minorities’ public education
opportunities by killing charter schools.

Have we already hit the “Miss me yet?” reformation stage of
nanny jerk ex-mayor Michael Bloomberg? Perhaps among education
reformists. Bloomberg may have been down on letting New Yorkers
make choices about how much soda to drink, but he was a fan of
school choice and charter schools.

Bill de Blasio is not so big of a fan. Toward the end of last
week, de Blasio announced the city would not allow three new
charter schools to share space with public school buildings. The
agreements were backed by Bloomberg toward the end of his
administration, but de Blasio isn’t having it. From
Fox News:

While dozens of charter schools’ deals with the city remain
unaffected, the four affected schools had already hired principals
and teachers, and were in the process of recruiting pupils. In
addition to the Harlem school, the move leaves in the cold two
affiliated schools run by the nonprofit Success Academy Charter
Schools, headed by de Blasio’s former City Council colleague Eva
Moskowitz.

“Explaining to students and families that they won’t have a
school next year is the most heartbreaking thing I’ve done at
Success Academies,” Moskowitz said in a statement. “No parent
should have to go through this.”

Charter schools do get a share of tax money to operate, but they
don’t get public funds to pay for locations or facilities. Thus,
this sharing (or sometimes full school takeovers) is a way for
charter schools to keep costs down, which helps make them more
available and accessible to the poor. And the poor are the
customers for these schools. Moskowitz isn’t running some
fly-by-night charter operation, either. Her Success Academy schools
do well. New York Daily News
notes:

Success Academy 4 children are 97% black and Hispanic. More than
three quarters are poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-price
lunch. Even so, a stunning 96% of the school’s kids passed the
tough new state math exam. Fifty three percent passed the English
exam — putting them in the top tier of all schools across the
state. …

At nearby PS 76, 8% of kids passed their state math tests, and
6% in English. At nearby PS 149, 3% of kids passed in math, and 7%
in English. At nearby Frederick Douglass 2, 3% of kids passed in
math, and 9% in English.

De Blasio’s attitude toward charter schools may make him the
darling of the
United Federation of Teachers, but it’s putting him at odds
with a growing number of Democratic leaders, including President
Barack Obama, who
praised a Harlem charter school in a recent speech promoting
so-called “Promise Zones” for poor communities.

There’s a well-publicized rift in the Republican Party on how
they should approach social issues and pork-filled defense
spending. But there’s a much less publicized rift in the Democratic
Party about charter schools, which despite what detractors
connected to education unions say, are growing more and more
popular among the parts of the Democratic base that don’t work for
the government (and even among some who do). The fight may not have
broken the party open wide like what we’re seeing among Republicans
because the battles are taking place on the state and local levels.
It’s definitely a conflict to watch, though, as charter school
popularity continues to grow.

If you feel like delving deep into school choice issues on this
dismal Monday, watch Reason TV’s recent hour-long panel discussion
from National School Choice Week, featuring National School Choice
Week President Andrew Campanella, Reason Foundation Director of
Education Policy Lisa Snell, former Arizona Superintendent and
education reformer Lisa Keegan, Pacific Research Foundation
Educational Director Lance Izumi, and California Teachers’
Empowerment Network founder Larry Sand:

“Coding Boot Camps Can Get Students Jobs; No Wonder CA is
Busting Them (Nanny of the Month 2-14)” is the latest video
from ReasonTV. Watch above or click on the link below for video,
full text, supporting links, downloadable versions, and more Reason
TV clips.

View this article.