A local landlord and the owner of an adult entertainment company who were looking to build a strip club on Stimson Avenue accepted $425,000 to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit on Monday, according to several officials involved.
The money will come from the city’s insurance company, and no tax dollars will be used to pay the settlement, according to a joint news release from the parties involved in the case.
One plaintiff, Three Wide Entertainment owner Christopher Stotts, originally filed for a zoning permit in 2007 but was denied multiple times by the city Board of Zoning Appeals.
But the Fourth District Court of Appeals, a federal court, overturned the Board’s decision in 2011.
The court agreed with Stotts: The Board’s decision was a violation of Stotts’ constitutional right of freedom of expression and speech.
Stotts and Demetrios Prokos, the owner of the site of the proposed strip club, then sued the city of Athens in 2011, according to a previous Post article. That suit came to a close Monday as Stotts and Prokos settled to withdraw the application for the “adult entertainment business” and dismiss the lawsuit.
“We fought for seven years and we are in a very good position,” Prokos told The Post after the press release was sent to the media. “If we thought we weren’t (in a good position), we wouldn’t have settled.”
Prokos said he decided to join Stotts as a plaintiff because “it was the right thing to do.”
Pat Lang, the city’s law director, was also satisfied with the settlement — which doesn’t have to be approved by Athens City Council because no taxpayer dollars are involved.
“The city is pleased that there will not be an ‘adult entertainment business’ on Stimson Avenue,” Lang said.
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