Joe Redner, one of Tampa Bay’s most recognizable figures, has died.
His family confirmed the news in a social media post, saying Redner died peacefully in his sleep on Friday morning.
“We love you. You will be missed Dad,” the post from his daughter, Joy Lynn Redner, said.
Redner, considered Tampa’s “strip club king,” was perhaps best known for his Mons Venus strip club that opened in the early 1990s.
According to a Tampa Bay Times report from 2022, Redner battled “police and politicians who went after the lap dance business model that made Tampa infamous.” He led a highly-publicized war against the city of Tampa over the “six-foot rule,” an ordinance that required naked dancers to maintain a distance from patrons.
Redner was also reportedly an investor for Cigar City Brewing and a familiar face in local politics, running unsuccessfully for multiple offices, including Tampa City Council.
10 Tampa Bay News spoke to Redner back in 2019 amid a legal setback, when a state appellate court ruled he could not legally grow his own marijuana to treat his lung cancer under Florida’s medical marijuana law. At the time, he said he would continue to fight for the cause.
“I’m fighting the fight for the Constitution, which is for everybody,” he said in a previous interview. “For poor people that can’t afford their medicine. And for myself.”