‘Erotic sports bar’ license denied as undercover officers find nudity, prostitution

A south-side neighborhood bar is fighting to reopen after the Wichita Police Department recommended the city not renew its license.

A series of issues at Vixen’s Erotic Sports Bar, 212 W. Harry, have cropped up this year and spurred that recommendation, including two homicides in the vicinity of the bar. Around the same time as an August killing in the bar’s parking lot, police officers were leading an undercover operation investigating possible prostitution there.

The club’s entertainment establishment license expired in September, and it has not been open since.

Vixen’s owner Jeran Trotter and his attorney, Chris O’Hara, filed an appeal in the city’s denial of their license.

On Tuesday, they took the issue to the City Council, which played the role of jury in the appeal case.

After nearly five hours of back-and-forth testimony on the issue, the Council decided it would not rule on the issue Tuesday. Mayor Jeff Longwell requested the Council view police reports and body-camera footage from police officers before voting on the matter.

By law, the council must make a decision within 30 days.

Undercover investigation

What occurred Tuesday was not a criminal trial.

Trotter has not been charged with a crime.

According to his attorney, O’Hara, he received a letter saying his entertainment establishment license would not be renewed because of violations of the city nudity ordinance and the ongoing undercover prostitution investigation.

On Monday, Wichita Police Chief Gordon Ramsay told KWCH his department is focusing on “problem places,” adding that Vixen’s “is a location that we’ve had issues” with.

“We’re not going to tolerate a licensed facility that is going to allow gun violence to happen,” Ramsay told the station. “Whether homicide or shootings, we want to see them take action that is going to help resolve the calls for service there.”

O’Hara argued his client was not getting due process, and that the city had not provided specific details of the allegations against his business.

Assistant City Attorney Jan Jarmon called to the podium Wichita police Lt. Travis Easter, a supervisor in the department’s Special Investigations Bureau, who told this account:

On April 21, officers noticed an unusually large amount of cars at the bar after 2 a.m. The officers did a “club check” at the bar, and found the front door was broken. Officers witnessed people leaving out the back door who were not employees of the club, a violation of city code.

In August, an undercover Wichita police officer looking for potential human trafficking cases responded to an online Backpage listing offering sex for payment.

The 18-year-old woman he contacted made a deal with the officer and wanted to meet at Vixen’s. She told him later she worked there.

The officer, as well as two other undercover officers, went to Vixen’s on Aug. 9, where they stayed for about two hours.

While there, the officers made contact with three separate dancers — and upon being tipped $1 bills, the dancers exposed their breasts to the officers. In one case, a dancer exposed herself to allow an officer to place a $1 bill in her undergarments.

A woman inside the bar offered to go into a private room with one of the undercover officers for $60. The officer did not accept.

The undercover officer and the woman from Backpage eventually left Vixen’s and went to the Surf Motel, 1643 S. Broadway, where she was arrested.

At that point, Wichita police officers were intent on doing a “long-term prostitution investigation” at the club, Easter said.

Those plans changed when, three days later, a 24-year-old man was shot to death in the club’s back parking lot.

Undercover officers returned to the club on Aug. 15 and observed a dancer exposing herself on stage to another patron.

The officers returned again the night of Aug. 17 and observed more nudity violations.

Instead of revoking the club’s entertainment establishment license, Easter said his unit waited until the license was up for renewal in September to recommend it be denied.

O’Hara, the attorney representing Vixen’s, made a case that the officers entrapped the dancers into exposing themselves by holding dollar bills into the air.

Jarmon responded saying that entrapment is “a criminal defense that doesn’t have anything to do with an administrative hearing.”

The City Council has wide leverage on how it can rule on the case — it can uphold or reverse the denial, or it can also impose certain conditions on the license.

Public nudity is against city code.

The bar, which is registered legally as TNT Global dba Vixen’s, currently has a valid drinking establishment license through Aug. 23, 2019. If its entertainment establishment license is denied, it will no longer be allowed to have music and dancing.

This story was originally published October 23, 2018 at 6:27 PM.