Mayor survives vote after strip-club visit

TALLINN - Tallinn Mayor Juri Mois survived another no-confidence vote on March 8. This time the reason was his March 6 visit to a well-known Tallinn striptease bar, which allegedly also houses a brothel.

Mois originally denied he went to the bar, then later admitted he did.

"But there was no show there that day," he said.

The bar, called Lily, is some 200 meters away from the city government building. It is a well-known venue in Tallinn and has been open for 10 years.

The Estonian tabloid SL Ohtuleht was the first of Tallinn's media to publish information about Mois' trip to Lily. In an interview with the paper in the same issue, on March 8, Mois explained that as mayor he has to keep in touch with life in the city, besides which he was looking for relaxation, as he put it.

Holes first appeared in Mois' account after the Estonian daily Eesti Paevaleht quoted an undisclosed source a day later who apparently works in Lily and saw Mois there on the night of Tuesday, March 6.

The source said the mayor was alone (without the guest he claimed to be with in the SL Ohtuleht story), and spent about 40 minutes in a luxurious room available for 1,200 kroons ($70) per hour. He was accompanied by Svetlana M., one of the strippers.

The Eesti Paevaleht source said this was the first time Mois had attended Lily while mayor, but when he was CEO of Hansapank he had visited the bar more often.

Mois, who is married with one child, is a member of the Pro Patria Union, led by Prime Minister Mart Laar. This is not the first time Pro Patria members have been embarrassed by Mois.

On Feb. 22, the opposition, spearheaded by populist Center Party leader Edgar Savisaar, charged the mayor with making nationalistic remarks.

Savisaar's aim is to replace Mois with a member of his own party, according to reports.

The accusation was based on a Radio Free Europe report that a recent speech by Mois at the Tuglas Cultural Society in Finland contained remarks comparing Russians and blacks.

Mois denied making such remarks, but the report resulted in an attempted no-confidence vote, the second Mois had undergone.

The first was filed in November 2000, when the opposition blamed the mayor for poor administration of the capital city. The opposition blamed the city administration, namely Mois and his coalition team, of rising public transport prices and of a negative decision on building a municipal apartment house.

That makes three no-confidence motions for Mois within the last five months. But each time the opposition has failed to find the 33 votes in the City Council needed to remove him.

The most the opposition could muster is 26.

Savisaar said that the mayor should have resigned long ago.

"Mois' resignation is not far off. It just depends on the moral readiness of the members of the City Council," he said.

He denied the possibility that someone from the Center Party had been tailing Mois on the night he went to Lily, but admitted that sometimes people do bring in useful information about the party's political rivals.

The Tallinn mayor has taken a week off starting March 12 to go on a week's skiing holiday to Italy.