TAMPA, Florida - A Tampa strip club manager is reacting to the arrests of several of his dancers for offering prostitution. A total of 16 women were arrested from various strip clubs around the city over the last two days.
Skin operations manager Eric "Ice" Terrell said he knew the crackdown was coming, but didn't know when. He found out four of his dancers were arrested Friday.
"They've never been arrested before. As far as I'm concerned, they're four of my better girls. And I was very surprised. Very surprised," said Terrell.
Terrell said at no point was anything illegal happening at his club. He added his girls simply answered a question from undercover officers.
"It was more of just the questions that they were asking them. And they were very persistent in the questions, until they got what they wanted," said Terrell. "They made the girls say things that they wanted them to say and they arrested them."
In the two-day operation, called "Keep it Clean," Tampa Police targeted a total of 14 strip clubs. Police are cracking down with the Republican National Convention a bit more than a week away.
"What we begin to do is we monitor these locations, just to make sure. We have an obligation just to make sure that we don't have juveniles that are involved in human trafficking issues or that we have a lot of prostitutes coming to the area to take advantage of the large crowds that are going to be here," said assistant Tampa Police chief John Newman.
Police arrested 16 women at various strip clubs, including four arrests at Alibi Lounge, and three each at Scarlett's and Play Pen. All were arrested for offering prostitution. The women ranged in age from 19 to 61 years old.
Tampa authorities are hoping this sends a message.
"That we have a standard. We have laws in place that address these type of crimes and we're going to enforce them," said Assistant Chief Newman.
Terrell said there's a standard in his club as well, and it doesn't include prostitution or anything else illegal. "That does not happen. We do not allow it. They do not leave the premises with any customers," he said.
In addition to the charges of offering prostitution, there was also one drug charge. Out of the 14 clubs checked, eight did not have any arrests. Also, none of them had underage workers.
Tampa Police said they will continue to do these checks, even during the convention.
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