Miami-Dade’s COVID rules allow lap dances?! Mayor said he didn’t know. He’s banning them.
The saga of Miami lap dances during the coronavirus pandemic took another turn late Tuesday night when the county mayor whose administration has allowed the close-contact performances said he didn’t know they were still happening.
Mayor Carlos Gimenez “was unaware that lap dances were authorized at some adult entertainment venues,” Deputy Mayor Jennifer Moon said by text shortly before 10:30 p.m. “They will be prohibited henceforth.”
The prior policy of allowing lap dances to resume once strip clubs reopened captured the optimism Gimenez expressed in May that a thicket of new rules drafted by his administration could let most of the economy reopen as COVID spread eased.
With infection rates spiking and hospitalizations on the rise, Gimenez is imposing new rules targeting night life and July Fourth crowds, including a ban on parades and beach-going during the long weekend.
Oddly, it was mistaken media reports earlier in the day announcing a new county ban on lap dances that prompted the actual ban late at night.
On Monday, Gimenez released an amendment to the June 4 order that allowed entertainment venues to reopen. The posted change included language requiring 10 feet between performers and patrons, wording that prompted news stories declaring an end to lap dancing in Miami-Dade.
But those stories had to be corrected later in the day when Moon said the language behind the reports wasn’t new and that lap dances remain legal under existing emergency orders. “The lap dances are not considered a performance,” Moon told the Herald midday Tuesday, and so aren’t covered by the 10-feet rule.
Miami-Dade’s permissive policy on erotic dancing during a pandemic had already made the news in recent weeks, including in a June 26 Miami Herald article with the headline: “A lap dance with a masked stripper? What strip clubs are like in the coronavirus age.”
Under the operating plans approved by Moon, employees at strip clubs performing lap dances — typically a paid session where the worker dances close enough to the customer to touch them — must follow the same mask-and-glove rules governing massage therapists.
The strip club reopenings were authorized as Miami-Dade began dealing with the latest surge in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations. Moon oversees those rules, including approval of plans that Gimenez required for movie theaters, amusement parks and other entertainment venues, including strip clubs.
Moon said the portions of the plans allowing close contact by dancers will no longer be considered approved by the county.
“I will be contacting the places that have included them in their plans to let them know they are prohibited,” she said.
This story was originally published June 30, 2020 at 11:58 PM.