North Miami board members voted 5-2 to approve a waiver for an alcohol license at what will be the city’s first all-nude strip club -- despite its location on "Sesame Street" and pleas from local children.
The city’s ordinance does not allow for alcohol to be sold within 1,500 feet of a residence, church or school, and since an apartment complex is within that space, the future club at Northeast 151 Street needed a waiver from the board, Local 10 reports.
The club, located on what North Miamians have long called "Sesame Street" because the show is broadcast from WPTV next door, is also less than 500 feet from the Miami Gymnastics and Dance Academy for children. The gym is technically not a school, but concerned residents were no less outraged about the proximity.
"Well it's not a secret to anyone that strip clubs involve not only alcohol, but unfortunately drugs and other stuff," Natalie Pyrig, who owns the gym, told WSVN. "It was even mentioned, I think by someone on the board, that you don't know what these people will be doing."
Pyrig brought some of her students to the meeting, wielding handmade signs. Several of the children spoke before the board, prompting the meeting to get heated when former North Miami Mayor Kevin Burns argued it was "shameful that people tried to pull the little kid card."
Burns then shocked parents by explaining, in front of the children, that “[Strip clubs are] where mommies and daddies can go to watch other people dance naked.”