During a rare evidentiary hearing in Cameron County Commissioners Court on Monday, attorney Larry Mark Polsky threatened to file a class-action takings lawsuit if commissioners didn’t reverse the denial of his application for a topless bar just north of Beach Access 6 on South Padre Island.
The evidentiary hearing is regarding Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio’s decision to deny Polsky’s application for a sexually oriented business because he failed to notify all of the adjacent landowners of his intentions and because the Cameron County Commissioners Court found that the public beach is basically a public park. No sexually oriented businesses are allowed within 1,500 feet of a public park in CameronCounty.
The more than two-hour-long meeting was new ground for commissioners as the court was still trying to determine Monday what legal authority it had regarding subpoenas Polsky issued. Witnesses stood at the lectern in the courtroom at the DancyBuilding while commissioners Sofia C. Benavides, David A. Garza, Alex Dominguez and Judge Eddie Treviño Jr. listened to testimony and accepted evidence while ruling on objections. Commissioner Gus Ruiz was absent.
During the hearing, Polsky called himself to the stand to lay out his case, but left the hearing when commissioners went into executive session and did not return.
During the hearing, Polsky argued that he neglected to notify one person but that through word of mouth, all the property owners were notified in time for a public hearing required for his application for the topless bar. He also challenged Cameron County Commissioners Court declaration that the public beach is a public park because the court made that ruling after he filed his application.
“I want to point out to each and every one of you, when I applied on June 3, 2017, for my sexually oriented business license there was no finding by Cameron County Commissioners that the beach, within 1,500 feet of Larry Mark Polsky’s property, is a public park,” Polsky told commissioners. “In other words, you created a fiction after I applied that didn’t exist before I applied. You created a public park within 1,500 feet of my property to squash my application.”
