SCOTTSDALE, AZ – As city officials are exploring their options in shutting down two local strip clubs, Scottsdale police are actively investigating the bars for possible violations of a local ordinance which regulates “sexually-oriented” businesses.Both Skin Cabaret and Babe’s Cabaret are located in south Scottsdale, an area that the city has committed to revitalizing; a major research facility, the Arizona State University Center for New Technology and Innovation, is slated to be built on the southeast corner of McDowell and Scottsdale roads – right across the street from Skin.

“The police department is proceeding with an investigation of the sexually oriented businesses in Scottsdale,” said Pat Dodds, a Scottsdale city spokesman. “And they are proceeding in concert with the city attorney’s office and making a determination whether to take any additional action.”

Scottsdale police expense reports show that undercover police officers have been to the two clubs several times during the past three weeks, and that officers have spent a little under $350 at the clubs so far in 2005.

The city redacted the dates on the expense reports, an effort to protect information about the police department’s investigative techniques and methods, so it is unclear precisely how many times officers have been to the clubs.

It is also unclear whether either club has been issued any citations for violations of the Scottsdale Sexually Oriented Business Ordinance. Babe’s manager Rigoberto Durazo told the East Valley Tribune he wasn’t aware of any citations, and he has not been notified of his bar violating any rules.

Under the city’s Sexually Oriented Business Ordinance, “No employee, using their hands or any other part of their body, may knowingly make contact with the breasts, buttocks, anus or genitals of any other person,” and, likewise, “No patron, using their hands or any other part of their body, may knowingly make contact with the breasts, buttocks, anus or genitals of any employee.” Under the ordinance, “contact” includes contact that takes place “through clothing or by means of any other object.”

Legal concerns, specifically those of former City Attorney David Pennartz, who felt that the ordinance might not hold up in federal court, have reportedly kept the city from aggressively enforcing the ordinance, and Pennartz instructed Scottsdale’s police and prosecutors to stop enforcing the regulations in August 2003. Following an investigative piece run in the East Valley Tribune, however, police began monitoring clubs again, according to Dodds.

Both clubs have been subjected to increased scrutiny in recent weeks, following reports that Jenna Jameson, a resident of nearby Paradise Valley, had purchased a share of Babe’s. Scottsdale Mayor Mary Manross and several City Council members have pledged to shut Babe’s down.

A U.S. Court of Appeals ruling handed down in late 2004 may force the city to alter its ordinance, although the Scottsdale city attorney’s office contends that most of the regulations will remain intact. The city has refused to disclose which ordinances are being enforced, however.

The City Council is scheduled to discuss the Sexually Oriented Business Ordinance on Tuesday. The meeting is closed to the public.