November 5, 2017

Kevin W. Teets Jr.

Law Offices of Kevin Teets
P.O. Box 22389 #67686
Nashville, TN 37202-2389

Board of Alderman
City of Portland, TN
100 South Russell Street
Portland, TN 37148

Re: LEGAL DEMAND THAT THE CITY REFRAIN FROM VOTING ON

ORDIANCE 17-59 UNTIL THE BUSINESS OF THE CITY IS CONDUCTED IN
THE SUNLIGHT WITH PROPER NOTICE OF THE BILLS LANGUAGE
BEFORE THE PUBLIC PRIOR TO A PUBLIC HEARING SO THE PUBLIC
CAN RESPOND TO THESE SHAMEFUL, INSULTING, HATEFUL AND
ILLOGICAL CONCLUSIONS BELIEVED TO BE EMBODIED IN THE
LANGUAGE AND SECONDARY EFFECTS CASE STUDIES THE BILLS
SPONSOR IS EXPECTED TO INTRODUCE TONIGHT

Honorable Board of Alderman,

On behalf of my clients, The Tennessee Equality Project and individuals who have
performed in drag and who desire to perform in the future in drag in the city of Portland, I write
to you today to once again demand that the discriminatory and unconstitutional ordinance you
are considering be pulled from the table and taken off notice immediately.

Further, in writing this letter I am making a formal demand that the Board refrain from
taking any vote on the so called adult oriented business ordinance during the Boards
November 6th meeting tonight as doing so would violate not only Portlands local governing
rules and charter, but the laws of Tennessee that require the public be given adequate notice of
the content of a bill a legislative body is considering and that the public be given the opportunity
to be heard on the content that is being proposedsomething that is impossible for the public to
do if the public is not informed of the language that the government intends to introduce.

First off, the agenda that is posted on the citys website for the meeting tonight contains a
version of Ordinance 17-59 that is not the version that was passed unanimously on September
5th. There have been substantial and significant changes made to the September 5th ordinance,
including that the city has now chosen to redact from the text of the bill any mention of the
words male or female impersonators. The minutes of the September 5th meeting and the
September 18th meeting are both devoid of any amendments being made to the language of the
bill. The version that is on tonights agenda isnt the same as the one that was unanimously
passed on September 5th. If the body intends to codify what is contained in tonights agenda, they
should only use tonight to adopt the language on first reading as it is indeed the first time this
language is before the body.

But, even the version of the ordinance that has been made available to the public is not
the actual version that a local news outlet suggests will be brought forward during Mondays
meeting. This is not open government that is accessible to the public. The news article posted on
November 5th to The Portland Suns website contains a lot of information that my clients and
other interested parties would certainly like to be made aware of in a manner that gives them
time to adequately prepare, respond and attend a public hearing where they can be heard on the
topic. For example, the news article states:

that the ordinance will explain that sexually oriented businesses are
frequently used for unlawful sexual activities and have a deleterious
effect on existing businesses around them and the surrounding
residential areas adjacent to them, causing increased crime, and the
downgrading of property values.

I understand the city and its leaders may be tempted to run the operations of city
government in the shadows with only a whisper after literally thousands of media outlets across
the country have reported on the City of Portlands attempts at trampling on the rights of LGBT
individuals by banning drag performancesan act that our nations history really hasnt seen a
government so blatantly do since the era of the Stonewall riots. But, the operations of the
government do not belong to the citys leaders. It belongs to the people and the laws of our state
require that the people be notified of both the content of what the city intends to do and in this
case, there absolutely must be a public hearing on this matter after the city has made public the
version of a bill that disgustingly attempts to equate drag performances with sexual activities and
suggests that because a woman dresses as a man or a man dresses as a woman that they are
causing crime to rise, illegal sexual activities to increase and property values to decline.

Respectfully, if the sponsor of this bill desires to take an already homophobic piece of
legislation that discriminates against individuals because their sexuality and gender identity do
not conform with what the sponsor feels is acceptable or normal and amend the terrible bill into
one that is outright defamatory, hateful, and disgustingly shameful then the sponsor need not be a
coward about his views. Rather, the sponsor should do as the law requires and make this
proposed amendment public and give the public the statutory required 15 days notice before a
public hearing is held and the sponsor along with the rest of the board of alderman should have
to come face to face with those who disagree with the absurd position by the bills sponsor that
just because someone dresses in clothes traditionally not associated with their gender they are
now considered to be engaging in adult-sexually oriented activity and therefore bring negative
secondary effects to a community such as crime, illegal sexual activity and decreased property
values.

Absolutely nothing has been put into the record to show that drag performances
automatically fall within adult-oriented business activities. Thats not what the state statute does
either. It still requires that there be erotic impersonators. And as each of you stated at the last
meeting, none of you have actually seen the drag shows that you are seeking to ban. Had you or
anyone within the City of Portland actually observed the drag performances rather than causing
hysteria and further misunderstanding about drag performances you would have observed that all
performers kept their clothing on during the entirety of the performance. Unlike a woman who
dances topless or dances completely nude, drag performers arent showing off their private parts.
To the contrary, they are tucking, taping, covering and hiding those body parts so they cant be
seen even with clothes being worn. Nothing about the drag shows my clients have been
performing in and the ones they desire to continue to perform in suggests that they are engaging
in activities that are adult-oriented and erotic in nature so as to fall in the same category as strip
clubs. Absolutely nothing. In fact, as we all know, the only thing that makes the drag shows my
clients have performed in any different than the ones at the high school womanless beauty
review is that my clients are all part of the LGBT community and it seems that a majority in
Portland may be okay with presumably heterosexual teenagers dressing in drag to humiliate and
laugh at themselves for charity, but is clearly not okay with gay, lesbian and transgender people
also dressing in drag when for some of the entertainers drag is nothing more than entertainment
while for others it may be an expression of their own gender identity.

The sponsor of the bill intends to introduce case studies of secondary effects into the
record. Yes, this is a strategy in showing constitutionality in zoning cases where the Courts have
recognized that a local government can use secondary effects case studies to show that there is a
compelling governmental interest for the zoning action desired to be taken and that the interest is
so compelling that it is constitutional even if it involves violating speech. Almost every case that
analyzes the secondary effects doctrine is one where the government desired to regulate adult-
oriented activities through its zoning laws. And almost every one of those cases involved topless
and fully nude women that were performing as dancers in clubs known as strip clubs or
gentleman clubs. The secondary effects doctrine, which does not have broad applicability and
which is often times, as in this very bill you are considering, used only to hide the real intent
behind the citys zoning ordinance, has historically been used to show that strip clubs and adult
theaters have some quantifiable negative effects such as looting, increases in crime, increases in
illegal sexual acts, property value decreases, etc., and that these are things a government would
have a compelling government interest in preventing, therefore, in many cases local governments
can do things like say certain adult entertainment establishments may not be allowed in the
business district.

No one is going to believe for a second that the Board of Alderman had the secondary
effects of adult oriented businesses in their mind when they first proposed Ordinance 17-59. If it
was on the minds of the lawmakers, then the text of the bill itself would contain mention of
secondary effects, or, at a minimum, the meeting minutes would reflect such. In this case, not
only has the Board of Alderman not established that the drag shows are in fact adult-oriented
activities, they have until this 11th hour amendment believed to be brought by the bills sponsor,
failed to mention secondary effects in any manner whatsoever. The secondary effects were not
discussed at all, in fact, until legal memos were issued by my office and the ACLU.

Yes, the secondary effects doctrine is a real strategy local governments can use so as to
put case studies into the record when they believe a zoning ordinance will be challenged as a
violation of the first amendment. Yes, its real. But, the bills sponsor is trying to apply it to a
fact scenario that would be similar to taking hockey rules and applying them to a football game.
It doesnt work.

The facts before us in Portland would suggest that drag performances are happening once
a month for a period of about four hours. Keep in mind that in almost every case that utilizes the
secondary effects doctrine successfully, city governments were trying to pass zoning ordinances
that would affect strip clubs and gentlemen clubs where people were dancing nude almost 365
days of the year and were often times doing so 24 hours a day.

Drag performances are not all adult-oriented and erotic. However, even if they were, or
the board had some proof (in spite of never seeing the shows) that they were, for the secondary
effects doctrine to work in this case, the bills sponsor cannot just generally introduce case
studies showing negative effects of adult businesses and then just throw drag performances in
that category too. That would be absurd as saying all opera performances are adult theater and
that all opera causes crime to increase and property values to go down. But, even if the sponsor
of this bill arms himself provided case studies on how drag performers are causing crime to
increase, sexual acts to increase and property values to decline (I am aware of no such studies.
Surely the bill's sponsor would provide said studies, if they exist), the city would still face the
reality that when the activities are occurring only for four hours during a month, these effects
would be minimal. The hurdles the city must jump to show that they are working towards
achieving a compelling governmental interest become immensely higher to the point of being
almost impossible to jump over at all.

The bills sponsor will be unable to show that drag performances have caused negative
impacts on a society. To the contrary, research would support that LGBT movement into a
community actually causes the property values to rise and has turned many urban districts from
crime-ridden impoverished areas to now thriving urban and creative communities. Even if there
is actual evidence of drag performances causing harm to a society, the City will not be able to in
good faith 1.) articulate to a court that this is actually about secondary effects when the mayor
and everyone else on the board has made their disdain towards the drag shows known 2). Be able
to demonstrate to a court that the government must step in to prevent these secondary effects
even when the activities of drag performances occur only four hours a month.

Lastly, another reason why no vote should be taken on this bill tonight is because the
sponsor should also give other interested groups, such as my clients, the opportunity to tender
experts in this field to speak on the record about how absurdly illogical it is to state all drag
performances leads to negative secondary effects.

If that were true, perhaps the districts grand jury should be considering criminal
indictments for child endangerment against the adults at the high school that have allowed
children in the Portland school system to annually participate in drag performances of their own.
And perhaps every parent should shame themselves if they ever allowed their child to watch the
late Robin Williams perform in drag as part of the academy award winning movie, Mrs.
Doubtfire.

Or perhaps, this bill should be taken off notice and the city focus their time and energy
elsewhere. My clients expressions of free speech may not be liked by you or the majority in the
city of Portland. And that is exactly why I will file a lawsuit to defend their First amendment
rights and file suit and/or seek an injunction if a vote takes place on this bill tonight without the
text of the amendment being made public and the public being given an opportunity to address
the language that the sponsor intends to use to make the bill.

You see, speech by the majority rarely needs to be protected. Minority speech and even
unpopular speech is what fills the pages of constitutional law casebooks from the time of our
countrys creation to the present. And Im certain every academic publishing company has
several pages with the City of Portlands name on them that will soon contain the story of a town
outraged by the thought of homosexuals, transgender, cisgender, drag queens in big hair, high
heels and crazy makeup laughing, dancing and lip-synching in the towns central business
district.

Please save your constituents money and dont go down a path that will inevitably mean
their hard-earned dollars paid in taxes will go towards litigation when the caselaw is absolutely
not on the citys side. Withdraw this discriminatory bill and stop shamefully pretending that this
has anything to do with a secondary effects doctrine and that ILGBT individuals performing in
drag are responsible for negative secondary effects a town may face. If you are a person of faith,
you know in your heart that this has nothing to do with secondary effects doctrine and that you
are being dishonest with yourself and your community by pretending that it does.

Thank you,

Kevin W. Teets Jr.

Law Offices of Kevin Teets
P.O. Box 22389 #67686
Nashville, TN 37202-2389
Phone: 615.933.8230
Fax: 615.658.9999
Email: kevin.teets@kevinteetslaw.com

Copies to:

Board of Alderman: bev.watson@comcast.net, jodymcdowell@cityofportlandtn.gov,

drewjennings@cityofportlandtn.gov, daddyb1978@gmail.com, corykandrews1969@yahoo.com,
mikecallis@cityofportlandtn.gov, 16153251807@efaxsend.com

Mayor of Portland: kmayor@cityofportlandtn.gov