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Swingers club gathers enemies
By CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD © St. Petersburg Times, published October 22, 2000 TAMPA -- The swingers slipped into town quietly, in Toyotas and BMWs, in khaki Dockers and skintight studded leather, converging nightly on the big pink-and-white house on the corner of Nebraska and Comanche. Inside, they munched Chex Mix, sipped Coke from red plastic cups, and occasionally disappeared to back-room mattresses with each other's spouses. Neighbors, meanwhile, were swapping rumors. Some figured it must be an art gallery, which would explain why a lot of visitors wore fancy dress. Others said a brothel, which would explain why no one showed up before 10 p.m. The truth, when it came out, made some neighbors twitter and others reach for their children. Now, 10 months after they arrived, the swingers' haven in Old Seminole Heights, called Taboo Tampa, has become the latest battleground in the city's sex wars. The mayor calls it an embarrassment. Police want it closed. State Attorney Jack Rudy is prosecuting the owner, John Melfi, for violating zoning regulations. The patrons say the legal attacks have less to do with the city code than with their lifestyle, which they call deeply misunderstood but far more common than city leaders think. "It's very difficult to meet other people in the lifestyle," said Melfi, 36, who helped open a similar club in Atlanta and hopes to open more in other states. "All we wanted to do was to provide a place for people of like minds to meet and socialize." Don and Linda White, two regulars at the club, say they have been married for 10 years and swinging for one. The Tampa couple says they don't care who knows as they are self-employed as builders of communications equipment. But most swingers fear the stigma. "It's so forbidden morally that it's all underground. It's all hid," said Don White, 38. "You can't stand up and say, "I'm a swinger.' " "I don't consider this cheating," said Mrs. White, 41. "Cheating is sneaking." The sign in front of the house on N Nebraska Avenue gives only the address: "5606." It faces a block busy with prostitutes, low-rent motels and pawnshops, while behind it lie quiet rows of houses. Melfi, who rents the house, hoped the location would be discreet. He estimates 2,500 people have gone through the door since he opened in December. On a recent Friday night, a St. Petersburg Times reporter toured the house. A sign in the front lobby warns visitors of possible nudity. Paintings of Dali's melting clocks decorate the walls. In mingling areas dimly lit by candlelight and bulbs meant to resemble candles, visitors lounge on overstuffed sofas, ignoring chess and backgammon sets while pornography plays on two TVs. In one room, patrons chat tentatively around a long table arrayed with platters of finger food. Everyone is clothed. From there, halls lead to a series of bedrooms equipped with beds and sex toys. Upstairs, in the "couples room," some half-dozen mattresses are laid out side by side. Besides the rule barring alcohol, swingers say they obey a code of etiquette. People must ask before joining another couple. Swingers say they come in all types. Some just watch, which falls under "soft swinging." Their first six months in the lifestyle, say Don and Linda White, that's mostly all they did. White said she used to be bothered by the thought of her husband sleeping with other women. "It's something you work on," she said. "Especially women. We're so much more emotional with the whole sex thing." Now, she said she thinks of swinging as merely "playtime." "There's no emotional tie," she said. "It's just like any other toy. When you're done, you put it away." Even the most zealous swingers acknowledge the emotional dangers. It won't save a troubled marriage, they say, and if there's already a fissure, this can crack it wide open. "You have to be a very strong couple," Mrs. White said. The basic question of what to call Taboo Tampa has pitted Melfi against the combined might of the city and its law-enforcement apparatus. Melfi, who used to work in the nightclub business, calls it a private, European-style social club. The city, noting that swingers must pay to get in -- $50 for a three-month membership, plus a "mandatory donation" on entering, which is waived for single women, but ranges from $25 to $70 -- calls it an adult business, even though swinger clubs aren't specifically mentioned in the city code. Tampa police charged Melfi on Aug. 30 with running an adult business in a house not zoned for it, and with lacking a special-use permit. By then, the police, which began investigating the club in March, had sent plainclothes officers inside at least twice. Undercover police went in again late at night on Sept. 1, and raided the house hours later, briefly detaining several swingers "involved in open sexual activity," according to a police report. Melfi was charged with two more code violations. Melfi is now appealing the city's ruling that he runs an adult-use business. On Friday, Circuit Judge Sam Pendino threw out his request to halt arrests until those appeals play out. One of Melfi's lawyers is Luke Lirot, who also represents strip club kingpin Joe Redner. Lirot says he thinks city officials are wielding the code book as a bludgeon against people with sexual mores the officials disapprove of. "They see it as some sort of threat to their way of life," Lirot said. "In a free country, they're no threat to anyone." Swinging, he added, is not that rare. "Throughout the state, you're talking about probably hundreds of thousands of people that subscribe to this lifestyle and lead relatively normal lives in every other fashion." In Fort Lauderdale last year, police raided two swinger clubs and charged dozens of people with lewd activity, though the courts tossed out the cases, saying someone besides police must find the behavior offensive. At issue in the current case, Lirot said, is the First Amendment itself. "I think we have some very significant privacy issues," he said. "I think most important in this context is freedom of association." Tampa already is entangled in a legal battle with Voyeur Dorm, where video cameras broadcast the private lives of college-age women to Web subscribers. City zoning officials have deemed it, like the swingers' club, an adult business that can't operate in a residential area, a ruling that is being challenged in federal court. Mayor Dick Greco speaks of the effort to shut down the club as an extention of the city's highly publicized raids at nude clubs that flout the ban on lap dancing. "My God, I'm no prude," Greco insists, but adds that if places like Taboo Tampa are left unchecked, "Pretty soon the whole town becomes a cesspool." He added: "That's about five blocks from where I was born. . . . People who say it's fine may say it's fine till it's their neighborhood." Council member Bob Buckhorn said he's not making moral judgments, but uses the language of contagion. "If you condone these things, they will fester and multiply," he said. He sees the raid at Taboo as part of the city's "quality of life" policing effort, designed to tackle "seemingly minor crimes before they become epidemic." Neighbors are divided. Barbara and Paul Santana, whose house abuts the club, want to see it shut down. "We're very uncomfortable with it," said Mrs. Santana, 62. "I'd like to know what goes on there. I hear they have orgies and swap meets." Added Susan Keeper, 45, who lives down the block: "It certainly doesn't improve the neighborhood." But Chris and Suzanne Snyder, who also live down the block, have a different take: Let the police worry about real problems, like street walkers on Nebraska. "We don't even know they're there," said Mrs. Snyder, 37, of the swingers. -- Researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Christopher Goffard can be reached at (813) 226-3337 or goffard@sptimes.com.
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