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Nudity clubs meet resistance
By SAUNDRA AMRHEIN Outside, a quick skid off U.S. 19 in Hudson, signs slapped on the windowless building offer "Harmonic Stress Relaxation" with the help of "beautiful attendants" and "aroma therapy." Inside, busty women in bikini tops -- one with hair spiked as high as her heels -- stand around or lounge on couches, curling on mascara or smoking cigarettes. This, owner Mark Wallot says, is the gateway to a nude and naturist lifestyle. Others have different names for Relaxation Station. Irate activists and members of Pasco County's large nudist community shudder at the association with such social hubs. Even a national naturist group Wallot says he joined disavows his club. For Assistant County Attorney Sidney Kilgore, Relaxation Station -- which opened more than three months ago following a fire this summer that gutted Wallot's Paradise Spa -- is possibly another front in the assault on adult entertainment ordinances. This past week, a federal judge blocked the enforcement of two county ordinances that sought to force adult businesses into industrial zones and prohibit employee-customer contact and other activities. But whether county attorneys decide to appeal the judge's decision, opt for a full hearing or alter the ordinances, Kilgore and officials will have to deal with the ticklish issue of nudity. The ordinances didn't address the booming nudism businesses in Central Pasco. And now, Kilgore said, some others might be trying to ride their doffed coattails. "You're trying to accommodate for nude recreation, but some people figure this is a good loophole," Kilgore said about Relaxation Station.
But Wallot said his business is not adult entertainment -- it's a naturist club and spa that promotes "body acceptance." "This place is a gateway club for people interested in going to a nudist colony where there are too many people," he said. "This is smaller and more comfortable because there aren't as many people." There weren't any people there, except attendants, during a recent morning visit. Wallot said he told patrons that a St. Petersburg Times reporter and photographer were on the way. The customers, he said, left the business in a hurry. But Wallot pointed out where those patrons, who become members for a $100 fee, can sit around on couches in a lounge where they must stay clothed. They can also retire, naked, to an outside deck and bask in the sun, shielded from U.S. 19 by a wooden fence. The big draw, though, are the private rooms, rented for $50 each. On massage tables, members lie naked and receive "harmonic stress" therapy from one of 14 naked attendants who are independently contracted and not employees, Wallot said. The attendants treat members to "sponge baths or rubdowns" with oils in rooms splashed with soft pink lights, decorated with landscape paintings and filled with gentle music and incense-smelling aromas. Wallot stressed that the attendants do not give massages, which would require them to be licensed by the state and would violate the now-suspended county ordinances. The purpose, Wallot said, is for people to become comfortable with their bodies while around other naked people. He's planning to build another "naturist" facility on 4 1/2 acres at the Paradise Spa site down the road off U.S. 19 where he hopes to place swimming pools with waterfalls and a tiki bar. Relaxation Station will prepare patrons for the experience. "That's the hardest thing, the first time taking clothing off in front of other people," he said. Kilgore isn't buying it. "Nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors," he said. "That's the little game we play. You go behind closed doors with someone naked who's rubbing oils on you, but nothing sexual is going to happen? Sure." The difference between nudist facilities and adult entertainment is that the former is "clearly about nudity" while the latter is about sex and sexual stimulation, Kilgore said. Also, the county has argued that negative effects, like crime and health risks, follow adult entertainment, not nudist resorts. Despite Wallot's marketing, Kilgore says the private rooms and independent attendants -- whom owners let take the fall if illegal activity is found on site -- point to an adult entertainment business. "You can put a monkey in a tuxedo, but it doesn't make him a gentleman," Kilgore said. Wallot said no sexual activity takes place on his property and the attendants were made independent because of "business decisions." In fact, he scoffed at the idea that he was trying to skirt the county ordinances and said his business has been a "nudist facility for seven years" and stressed that he belonged to the Naturist Society. But the national group, based in Wisconsin, said that Wallot only mailed an independent membership payment of $45 back in March -- the same month the county passed its ordinance banning employee-client contact and other regulations for adult businesses. The individual membership only qualifies members to subscriptions to the Naturist Society's publications and discounts into certain resorts around the country, said Nicky Hoffman, administrative director. Wallot called her offices several months ago asking about organization membership, Hoffman said, which would place a club name in the society's network for shared advertising and referrals. The society mailed him a participation agreement but he never mailed it back, she said. Based on some of the activities at Relaxation Station, it would not likely be accepted, she said. The organization members must promote a family environment and a naturist lifestyle, not sex, she said. Relaxation Station is for adults only. Her members' resorts also have massages but through licensed professionals who are not naked and who operate in rooms with glass walls and windows. "What goes on in those private rooms?" Hoffman asked. "We'd have to have a real good verification that there's no hanky-panky going on in there. Just on the wording on things it sounds to me like it's probably adult oriented and not something we'd want." When confronted with this information, Wallot called the membership claim a technicality and said, "You don't have to be a member to be a nudist." But then he added, "We are affiliated with all the different naturist organizations." But the American Association for Nude Recreation, with 50,000 members throughout the United States and Canada, said Wallot's club is not a member there, either. For Debbie Bowen, marketing director of Paradise Lakes in Land O'Lakes, said her 20-year-old, well-established "clothing optional" community with single-family homes and condominiums does not need introductions through places like Relaxation Station. Their 80,000 guests a year, and more than 6,000 members, have gathered information about them through other naturist facilities in other states or through the Internet. She's worried that more businesses like Relaxation Station could hurt ones like hers. "It sounds like it is very sexually oriented, whether they say they are or not," Bowen said. "If you start having organizations like Relaxation Station that bill themselves as nudists, and people go there expecting to find things like Paradise Lakes, they are going to say this lifestyle isn't right for us. ". . . You can turn it (nudist and clothing optional resorts) from having such a wholesome outlook. It's a family lifestyle. I think the public perception would change if we have a lot of those organizations opening up." -- Saundra Amrhein covers Pasco County government. She can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6244 or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6244. Her e-mail address is amrhein@sptimes.com.
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