TEASERS' LAWYER SAYS CITY 'MANUFACTURED' DRUG CHARGES

PERRY - An attorney for Teasers says the ordinance Warner Robins used
to yank the club's alcohol license is vague, that the city's January
hearing was biased and that the city manufactured the alleged drug
activity.

The city's attorney disagrees.

Both lawyers in the alcohol revocation case have filed briefs in
Houston Superior Court for a hearing set June 27 before Judge Ed Lukemire.

The Warner Robins City Council voted unanimously Feb. 7 to revoke
Teasers Show Bar's alcohol license based on illegal activity at the
club. The club has been allowed to pour during the appeal.

The city's alcohol ordinance says the city can revoke a business'
license if it finds conditions that "would make the continued
operation of the licensee's establishment detrimental, harmful or
undesirable to the community ... ."

Teaser's attorney, Steven Youngelson of Atlanta, says in court
documents the city's ordinance is "unconstitutionally" vague.

"There is no ascertainable standard with (the ordinance) which will
give the license holder notice of the law or the 'condition' which the
mayor and council will rely upon to find him 'harmful' or
'undesirable' to the community," according to Teasers' legal brief.
"Quite the contrary, that determination is left to the sole and
unfettered discretion of the mayor and council. ... How many 'drug
buys' create a harmful or undesirable condition? Is it 1, 10 or 43?"

The city conducted an undercover investigation between June 1998 and
July 1999 into illegal drug sales at the club. Eleven club employees
and customers were indicted last fall on various drug charges, some
state and others federal. District Attorney Kelly Burke dismissed the
state charges in January, but two cases proceeded in federal court.

Charles Cox, the city's attorney, defends the ordinance, saying it is
specific and that a business owner should expect consequences if
police make more than 30 drug buys in a 10-month time-frame on the
premises.

But Youngelson also contends that City Council's two-day hearing was
before "an unbiased inferior tribunal."

Cox argues that Youngelson never raised bias as an issue during the
hearing, and that when Teasers' attorney attempted to call the mayor
and council as witnesses, he "expressly stated that he was not wanting
to question them about bias."

The most "inflammatory allegation," in Youngelson's brief, is that the
city manufactured the alleged drug activity, according to Cox.

"... The record shows that the city police department created the
problem," according to Youngelson. "It misinformed Teasers and in fact
arranged for girls to deal drugs in Teasers."

Cox says that is not true.

"It has no merit," he said. "There is no evidence to support that."