MELBOURNE, Fla. -- City code enforcement officials have ordered a controversial underground swingers club to stop hosting sexually themed parties by the end of Thursday or face fines of up to $250 a day.
Melbourne officials and an irritated landlord want to close the Hunt Club which is based inside a house in the rustic Oak Groves subdivision, nestled among acre-lot estates, horse stables and backyard fish ponds along the Turtle Mound Road corridor.
Club operators Richard Spalding and Kirsi Page face $250 daily code enforcement fines if they host swingers' parties after Thursday.
Recent examples of their events have been "Naughty Girls, Ice Cream and High Heels Social," a pajama party and a paper-mask masquerade, according to various Web sites.
In a Tuesday e-mail to Code Enforcement Administrator Dan Porsi, Page contended that her club is a private group, not a business, Local 6 News partner Florida Today reported. She stated that Melbourne officials were "making up ridiculous fines and singling out a few people to persecute."
"Fully grown adults will not tolerate being told who they can and cannot have sex with," Page wrote. "Twisting existing laws or making up new ones to punish people for their sex lives is not only arrogant and misguided, but also corrupt in the sense that you are using your political position to impose your favored sexual practices on someone else."
Penny Hanson, who owns the Beth Lane home, is evicting Spalding and Page, City Hall records show. A lease termination notice was delivered to the house, effective June 30. Otherwise, beginning July 1, the club operators must start paying double rent, or $123.33 per day.
Porsi gave the club until Thursday to cease swingers' activities. Otherwise, the Melbourne code enforcement board could consider the matter during its July 30 meeting -- and levy daily fines of up to $250.
Previously, The Hunt Club asked party attendees for $40 donations, and the club sought $60,000 from investors to build an eight-bedroom complex. But in her e-mail to Porsi, Page stated that her organization violates no local laws.
"We have our friends over for parties. Yes, people at our parties consume alcohol. It is not against the law to have friends over to your house for fun," Page wrote. "That does not constitute the operation of a business."
The Hunt Club featured a stripper pole and stage, swinging sex chair and a bedroom that was converted into an "observation room," Police Chief Don Carey said in April.
http://www.local6.com/news/16583258/detail.html