A strip club on Sesame Street may happen in North Miami.
A South Florida company wants to open an all-nude gentleman's club that would include alcohol on a property at NE 151st Street and NE 20th Avenue in North Miami.
That combination is prohibited by a city ordinance, however. Area pastor Jack Hakimian agrees with the law, and not just because of what he calls the social ills that accompany strip clubs.
“Right now what you're talking about is removing a ban, you're talking about changing a city ordinance, and what it does is it opens up a can of worms to other strip establishments that want full alcohol distribution,” he said.
The property is next door to public television station WPBT, which has broadcast “Sesame Street” for years – so 20th Avenue has been dubbed Sesame Street.
There are fully nude clubs that serve alcohol in neighboring North Miami Beach, but that combination is also not permitted in that city – even though clubs have been illegally doing so for decades.
Earlier this week, North Miami Beach City Council members talked about why the ordinance has never been enforced. They are considering lifting the alcohol ban.
Local
North Miami officials are too. Councilman Scott Galvin said a strip club instead of an abandoned building would add jobs to the community and revenues to the city's tax base.
“There's two half a mile up Biscayne Boulevard from here, there's one literally two blocks around the corner on West Dixie from here, so it's not like we're introducing anything new to northeast Dade, it's just new to North Miami,” Galvin said.
