Strip Club News

The Barre city council is refusing to renew the license of a nude strip club because a patron allegedly touched a dancer in July of 2006.

Planet Rock’s nude dancer license is set to expire on December 31st. Last July, a county liquor inspector allegedly saw a customer place his head between a dancer’s breasts, violating a requirement that dancers stay at least three feet from customers. Now the city is using that one isolated incident to eliminate nude dancing.

Obviously, the city of Barre is using this minor incident to rob people of their constitutional right to enjoy nude entertainment. Their interest isn’t the safety and welfare of dancers, the rights of citizens, or anything else. Their true interest is to eliminate nude dancing anyway possible. Expect more of this type of thing across the United States as more and more municipalities enact harsh restrictions on strip clubs that could result in more “gotcha” situations such as this.

The Alabama Attorney General’s Office has agreed to a settlement with 18 adult nightclubs to allow topless strippers to use a spray-on latex product to cover parts of their body required to be covered under the state’s anti-nudity law.

Alabama’s anti-nudity law is one of the most restrictive in the entire nation. Under the law, any part of a dancer’s body that would normally be covered by a bikini must be covered by opaque clothing. Dancers have been using the spray-on latex on their breasts and bottoms to comply with the law.

The state is already defending itself against a lawsuit filed by gentlemen’s clubs over this unfair law. The state agreed to go along with the clubs’ idea to use latex to avoid having a judge follow through on his threat to throw out the entire law as unconstitutional.

West Memphis, Arkansas, is considering strengthening its ordinances to discourage strip clubs from locating in the city. Hoping to create a strong deterrent, city leaders are considering new laws to prohibit nudity and tipping of dancers.

“Adult entertainment is not the best thing we need to have here in West Memphis”, said city councilman Marco McClendon. “I hope the ordinance right here and the regulations within it will deter them even considering West Memphis as a possible location”, he added.

Currently, adult businesses are restricted to a small industrial area within the city of 28,000 residents. McClendon readily admits that while the city can’t legally prevent adult entertainment establishments from opening, that he hopes to make it much more difficult.

Who says politicians aren’t abusing their authority to circumvent the Constitution and court rulings?

At a recent public hearing in Campbell County, KY, proposed regulations against the adult entertainment industry were discussed. The proposed regulations are chiefly designed to target strip clubs.

The proposed law would require adult businesses to be licensed and require strippers to have licenses before they would be allowed to work. The dancer licenses would cost around $150. Also, the ordinance would prohibit dancers from mingling with customers for at least one hour after the end of their shifts to discourage prostitution.

On 12/19/2006 the Missouri Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision striking down a state law that barred nude dancing and touching between dancers and customers.

The law banned full nudity, imposed a requirment that dancers stay at least 10 feet from customers and remain behind a rail, barred dancers from touching customers, and required both patrons and dancers to be at least 21 years of age.

The law never took effect because the lower court struck it down days before it was to go into effect back in August 2005.

The Supreme Court ruled the law unconstitutional because it had a “change of purpose” as it made its way through the legislature. The strip club restrictions were tacked on to a bill that dealt with intoxicated driving offenses. The court ruling did not weigh whether or not the law infringed on constitutional rights. It is likely that the sponsor of the law, Republican state Senator Matt Bartle, will try again to harm the strip club industry and waste even more taxpayer dollars attempting to elminate something the courts have ruled is a constitutional right for decades now.