The state of Florida has gone after a Miami-area restaurant after videos surfaced of its drag queen shows in front of kids, saying the sexy shows violated the sensibilities of children.
After videos appeared of drag queens wearing pasties and dollar bills flowing from a bikini bottom in the presence of children in the audience, the state is going after the restaurant’s liquor license to shut it down, the governor said Wednesday. He said children didn’t need “some agenda shoved down their throats all the time.”
The complaint filed by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation on Tuesday asks for a final order that the R House restaurant is a nuisance and has its liquor license revoked.
The R House, in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood, identifies itself on its Facebook page as “the proud home of South Florida’s most popular weekend drag brunches! Make some time to check us out and experience R House.”
Florida conservative lawmakers have recently been going after drag queen performances.
Last month, Florida Rep. Anthony Sabatini, R-Howey-in-the-Hills, proposed banning drag shows aimed at children, and charging parents with a felony who bring their child to drag shows.
His announcement came after a Texas lawmaker proposed banning drag shows where children are present.
Gov. Ron DeSantis referenced that same Dallas video at a new conference Wednesday in Tampa. He said “a week or two later” another similar video surfaced from Miami. The state’s complaint said earlier this month, video on social media showed “a nearly nude dancer” was “parading” a young girl through the audience in Miami.
“We said, ‘Wait a minute, having kids involved in this is wrong,’” DeSantis said at the news conference in Tampa. “That is not the way you look out for our children, you protect children, you do not expose them to things that are inappropriate.”
So, state investigators started a probe and sent agents to “gather intelligence,” and “seeing what’s going on,” DeSantis said.
The state would take away the restaurant’s liquor license, DeSantis said to thunderous applause. The complaint from the state’s Department of Business and Professional regulation filed Tuesday say the state Supreme Court “has recognized that ‘men impersonating women’ in the context of ‘suggestive and indecent’ performances constitutes a public nuisance.”
Restaurant officials referred questions to their spokesman, Larry Carrino, through social media. Carrino said Wednesday in an email statement to the South Florida Sun Sentinel that, “We are aware of the complaint and are currently working with the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, through our attorney, to rectify the situation. We are hopeful that Governor DeSantis, a vociferous supporter and champion of Florida’s hospitality industry and small businesses, will see this as what it is, a misunderstanding, and that the matter will be resolved positively and promptly.”
Carrino said the restaurant has 21 days to request a hearing to get the matter resolved.
He said the drag brunch “has been part of R House’s weekly entertainment offerings going back several years.”
Tatiana Williams, executive director of TransInclusive Group, an LGBTQ advocacy group, said any child inside would have been taken there by parents or guardians and those are the people who should be making the decisions. She said the restaurant offers “respectable entertainment,” and the state’s action is an “attack on our community.”
She said this was the “agenda of the Republicans” and “it has nothing to do with laws or governing. They are overriding the parents’ decisions to educate their children, whatever that looks like.”
“It’s like they are trying to invade our rights.”
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