EDITORIAL: Oasis makes a mole hill out of a mountain

The “bikini dancing” Oasis bar wants nude dancing in Destin and they aren’t afraid to mince words in the process.
In their latest court filing, the lawyers for the Mountain Drive bar invoke the mighty First Amendment on one hand to support their dream of erotic dancing. In the same breath, they declare the city’s new adult entertainment ordinance as null and void because it wasn’t advertised in The Log under an 18-point headline.

So in “an abundance of caution,” the city is pulling a do-over and will push the ordinance through the Local Planning Agency and City Council again.

There are two lessons to be learned from this seemingly trifling matter:

No. 1, the legal eagles with the Oasis will use every avenue available to paper cut the city into submission.

No. 2, the city isn’t going to roll over without a fight.

“That’s the nature of this type of litigation. They pick and pick and pick,” said City Manager Greg Kisela.

He says that in passing the ordinance again the city is just “dotting its i’s and crossing its t’s.”

Let’s hope those i’s and t’s are in the right-sized font.

Because when it comes to ram-rodding a strip club into an improperly zoned area in the middle of a harbor redevelopment district, the Oasis isn’t afraid to rely on the letter of the law.