Florida’s Republican Attorney General James Uthmeier said Tuesday that his office has subpoenaed Linda Moore, the vice mayor of Vero Beach, Fla., in a state investigation into a drag performance that took place last month at a local wine bar Moore owns.
In a news release, Uthmeier’s office said there is evidence that a “Pride Tea Dance” held at the Kilted Mermaid on June 29, advertised as an all-ages event, “featured adult, sexualized performers in front of children, in violation of Florida law.”
The subpoena sent to Moore, dated July 8, requests surveillance video, employee work schedules and contracts or invoices that identify which performers were present at the event. The attorney general’s office is also asking Moore to produce information related to attendance at the event and copies of the Kilted Mermaid’s policies regarding age verification, admission policies, security screening and ID checks.
Uthmeier’s office did not immediately return a request to clarify which specific Florida law the state is accusing Moore of violating. Neither the news release nor the subpoena specifies which laws she allegedly broke.
Florida’s Protection of Children Act, which bars children from attending “adult live performances” featuring sexual or lewd conduct, has been unenforceable since 2023, when a federal judge ruled it likely unconstitutional. The law does not directly reference drag performances but is widely viewed, including by its primary sponsor, as being aimed at them.
In May, a federal appeals court panel upheld a lower court decision that described the state’s law as overly broad and vaguely written, leaving the injunction barring its enforcement in place while the case continues. In a post on the social platform X, Uthmeier called the ruling “radical and wrong” and said his office “will fight aggressively and swiftly to get these bad decisions overturned.”
“I stand by our law that protects kids from drag shows and other sexually explicit adult performances,” he said.
Moore, who has owned the Kilted Mermaid for more than a decade, must respond to Uthmeier’s subpoena by Aug. 8. She told The Hill in an email, “The Kilted Mermaid has done nothing wrong, and we are not certain what they are investigating as there is no crime listed on the subpoena.”
In an interview Tuesday with NBC News, Moore said the bar has held the same pride event annually for at least the past five years.
“We have the event every year; it’s our gay pride event, and it is all ages,” she said. “It’s a family-friendly event, and then once the drag show actually starts, we tell the parents who have small children that they can’t stay for the show.”
Photos and videos of the event circulated on social media by conservative activists, including Jennifer Pippin, who leads a local chapter of Moms for Liberty, mischaracterized the event, Moore said.
In a Facebook post the day after the event, Pippin wrote that she had reported the event to Uthmeier’s office for violating Florida’s law restricting “adult live performances.” She told NBC News that she was unaware the law had been blocked.
