Jacksonville exotic dancers lost their jobs to prevent sex trafficking: Did it work?

Twenty-one-year-old Lola has a car payment. She has an apartment she rents and a handful of pets to take care of. She pays taxes, takes nursing courses and sends what money she can to her less fortunate family members.

Lola lost her job in 2023, and the financial burdens that came with her unemployment have extended throughout her family — including to her disabled father, whom she was supporting and who suffers from ankylosing spondylitis, a type of arthritis that targets the joints and ligaments in the spine.

But no one seems to care when a stripper loses her job.

Lola, a stage name she uses for privacy and safety, was a dancer at Emperor’s Gentlemen’s Club who was let go because of a local age restriction which was imposed nearly a year ago.

Previous coverage: A decades-old battle for the naked heart of Jacksonville continues in 2023 mayoral race

What to know: Florida Legislature may increase age restriction to work at strip clubs

The highly debated law raised the minimum age of a dancer from 18 to 21 and required mandatory registration cards for dancers to perform in Jacksonville. U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Corrigan ruled on the law on Feb. 27, 2023, when Lola was 20 years old.

Since turning 21, Lola has returned to stripping, but the months in between were “hard and painful,” she said.

“I wish people understood that there is a really big stigma around the promiscuity of the job, but it’s really the same as any other job,” she said. “They said it was for sex trafficking, but statistically, if you look it up, sex trafficking is mainly targeted to girls 13-17, so I don’t understand why 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds are getting the brute force of [the law].”

Minimum dancing age gains traction in state Legislature

Former City Council member LeAnna Cumber, who spearheaded the introduction of this bill in Jacksonville, said this was an important move in “the push to eradicate sex trafficking.”

“The federal courts determined the government and in this case, the city, has an interest in curbing crimes like sex trafficking,” she said. “Cities have a right to regulate dancing based on age.”

Cumber said she thought it was great that the legislation could be picked up at the state level soon. She also said she has spoken with Sen. Clay Yarborough, R-Jacksonville, who is leading the charge on bringing this legislation statewide.

Yarborough proposed in his bill (SB 1690) that club employers be charged with a second degree felony for "knowingly" hiring nude dancers who are under the age of 21.

The legislation doesn’t just affect strip clubs either. The employee age restriction applies to any “adult entertainment establishment” — including adult bookstores, theaters, unlicensed massage establishments and “special cabarets” — defined under state law as “any business that features persons who engage in specific sexual activities for observation by patrons, and which restricts or purports to restrict admission only to adults.”

For employing non-nude workers at such establishments, it would be a first degree misdemeanor if they're younger than 21.

The Florida House also introduced a bill (HB 1379) that would accomplish the same goal of preventing those 21 and under from performing at adult entertainment establishments.

It passed its first House committee last week. So did a bill to lower the minimum age required to buy an assault rifle from 21 to 18.

Cumber said she had “no concerns” about the potential for the law to become statewide.

“I’m really excited that we were able to spearhead it here in Jacksonville,” she said. “It’s far better as state law rather than jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction. [It’s] one more piece working to eradicate sex trafficking that’s becoming a greater and greater issue in the country and in Florida.”

Young women lose jobs over sex trafficking concerns

Yet some Jacksonville women, like Lola, still struggled to afford their bills with the loss of income almost a year later.

Lola said she began partially supporting her family when she turned 18 and could start dancing and that she wouldn’t have been able to become fully independent without it.

“I knew it would be fast and easy money,” she said. “I would be safe and know people there, and I didn’t need any experience like I would need for a normal job.”

Lola recalled that she was putting her eyeliner on to get ready for work when she was told that she no longer had a job.

“A lot of girls would literally show up to come to work and be kicked away at the door,” she said. “It ruined my life, honestly. This law happened two months to the day after I got my apartment.”

Lola said she “had enough money to pay rent and bills that month, and that was it.”

“We should have been grandfathered in,” she said. “There are several girls I know who are living in their cars, doing drugs and have had to turn to prostitution to be able to live. I don’t think [Cumber] thought about what it would do for girls who were in there who are my age. Did she not realize that taking away our income makes us homeless or more susceptible to being sex trafficked than those who were in the club?”

Cumber emphatically said there is “no room” for job training or helping these displaced workers in legislation like this.

“There are plenty of jobs and employment opportunities,” she said. “Jacksonville had a 3% unemployment rate when this passed. This is about helping to curb a crime that’s happening in clubs, not helping people find employment.”

If the law expands to cover the whole state, hundreds of dancers could be affected and left without jobs.

Jacksonville has 16 strip clubs, which is about one for every 60,000 residents. By comparison, Tampa, which has been described as the strip club capital of the U.S., has approximately one club for every 15,482 residents.

Lola blamed Cumber personally for the financial strain she felt after losing her job and for not having solutions for people like her who were impacted.

“You put this law in place because you wanted to say you did something, not because you care about this cause,” she said. “There are so many other things that warrant taxpayer dollars and the attention of the government outside of just people who are just trying to do their jobs. If you walk through Riverside or downtown, there’s hundreds of homeless people on the street, why not do something to benefit them? What she did was oppression, honestly.”

Strip clubs targeted as human trafficking hubs

According to records of calls to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office between Jan. 1, 2020, and July 27, 2023, no one had contacted JSO for human or sex trafficking allegations from strip club locations in Jacksonville.

The calls checked were from club addresses including Bottomz Up Adult Entertainment, Centerfold Lounge, Doll House, Emperor’s Gentlemen’s Club, Flash Dancers, Pinky’s Gentlemen’s Club, Sinsations, SOS Gentlemen’s Club and Wacko’s.

Portions of the call logs were redacted, though, in accordance with Florida Statute 119, which in part protects the release of personal information of victims of sexual crimes.

Cumber said she was eager to hear reports from JSO regarding how the law has helped the city soon.

JSO did not immediately respond to a request for comment about sex trafficking in the city.

Mayor Donna Deegan, who took office after the law went into effect, said in a statement: “As we await more data on the effectiveness of the age requirement law, my administration is hopeful it will achieve its intended goal of fighting human trafficking in our community.”

Even without a report on whether this law has improved safety from human trafficking in Jacksonville, state legislators are moving forward with bills that could make it a statewide law.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Florida strip clubs could see age requirements similar to Jacksonville