TOPLESS CLUB RAIDED, CLOSED; DRUG SALES, ASSAULTS ALLEGED

Authorities raided and locked down a Brooks Road topless club Tuesday night
for alleged repeated drug sales and assaults. They are seeking to have the
club declared a permanent nuisance.

State prosecutors said Wednesday the raid on Babes Show Club at 1375 E.
Brooks Road, however, was different from the showy, highly publicized raids
in 1996 that briefly closed eight clubs but quickly became mired in
controversy and ended in failure.

The Tuesday raid did not involve constitutional issues regarding lewdness
or obscenity or whether something's an "artistic dance," said chief
narcotics prosecutor Bobby Carter.

"This is strictly based on illegal and repeated drug sales and other
violations. Not many people are going to come out and rally around that
type of behavior, I don't think," Carter said.

Earlier this year, Dist. Atty. Gen. Bill Gibbons began a $25,000 anti-crime
marketing campaign aimed at improving the public perception of Whitehaven
and the Brooks Road area.

The campaign is funded with drug forfeitures.

Carter said the Brooks Road business community has been "very vocal" about
wanting aggressive law enforcement action to help clean up prostitution,
drug sales and other crimes along the commercial district. "I think it's
safe to say that this (raid) is in part a response to those concerns," said
Carter, director of the West Tennessee Judicial Violent Crime and Drug Task
Force.

He said several Babes employees were charged with possession of drugs,
including methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana. Two handguns also were
seized and another employee was arrested on an outstanding warrant from
Bartlett.

A hearing is set for Tuesday before General Sessions Criminal Court Judge
Larry Potter, who will decide whether the club should remain closed pending
the outcome of the nuisance petition.

Carter said he will ask that the club remain closed until an agreement is
reached that will ensure that the drug sales, assaults and other violations
are not repeated.

"I think the law is pretty clear that as long as they operate within the
law you can't close them," he said.

The 1996 raid closed the clubs just two weeks. More than 200 prostitution,
indecency and obscenity indictments against employees were derailed by
court rulings that the indictments were tainted by the privately funded
work of special prosecutor Larry Parrish.

The private attorney and former federal prosecutor was paid more than
$500,000 by a special-interest group called Citizens for Community Values.
Parrish said much of that money went toward expenses.