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Posted on 10/02/2005 11:35:08 AM PDT by freepatriot32
SEATTLE (Oct. 2) - Strippers who venture too near the laps of their dollar-bill-waving patrons have exposed an unexpected prudish streak in this West Coast bastion of tolerance and liberalism.
Fearing a rash of new cabarets after a federal judge struck down the city's 17-year moratorium on new strip clubs, the City Council is planning to vote Monday to impose some of the strictest adult-entertainment regulations of any big city in the country.
No lap dances. No placing dollar bills in a dancer's G-string. And the clubs must have what one council member likens to "Fred Meyer" lighting, a reference to the department store chain.
"It's wiping out an entire industry in Seattle," said Gilbert Levy, a lawyer for Rick's gentleman's club.
Seattle's queasiness over naked dancing contradicts its usual freewill attitude, which traces its roots to the days when the city had a thriving business separating gold prospectors from their gold at local brothels and saloons. Anti-war demonstrations are routine here, a gay population has thrived for nearly a century, and residents voted two years ago to make enforcing marijuana laws the police department's lowest priority.
"Seattle had always had that reputation for being a wide-open town, so it's an almost-normal kind of Seattle controversy - what is sin?" said local historian David Wilma, comparing the strip club dilemma to the early 20th century debate over whether to regulate the gambling dens and brothels that permeated Seattle's Pioneer Square district. "One hundred years ago, it wasn't about public health. It was about what is offensive."
Between 1986 and 1988, the number of cabarets in Seattle jumped from two to seven. Concerned residents persuaded the city to impose a 180-day moratorium, to keep the number where it was while officials studied the social effects of the clubs and whether zoning regulations were needed.
Over the next two decades, the City Council repeatedly extended the moratorium as a way of avoiding the politically sensitive issue of deciding in which neighborhoods to allow strip clubs. The number of cabarets in the city fell to four. By contrast, Atlanta has roughly three dozen.
Last year, a man who hoped to open a club downtown sued. U.S. District Judge James Robart sided with him last month, ruling the moratorium an unconstitutional restraint on free speech. The city could wind up paying the man millions of dollars in damages.
In anticipation of the ruling, however, Democratic Mayor Greg Nickels came up with rules designed to make it easier to police strip clubs and to discourage new clubs from opening. The rules include requiring dancers to keep 4 feet from customers, barring the use of private rooms, barring customers from giving money directly to entertainers, and increasing the minimum lighting - think parking-garage brightness.
The rules would also make the entertainers employees of a club instead of private contractors, which the city believes will make it easier to go after club owners when violations occur. In Seattle, most dancers pay about $150 per shift for the privilege of dancing in the club, and keep what they make in fees and tips.
Several suburban communities around Seattle already have the 4-foot rule, one reason clubs seek to open in Seattle, Nickels argues. The regulations "are necessary to protect the public health, safety, and general welfare of the citizens of Seattle," he wrote in a letter to City Council. Some council members say the regulations may go too far, but the measure appears to have enough support.
Technicallythe city already bans "touching" between a dancer and customer, but city officials dispute whether that means sexual touching or all touching. At any rate, they say it's impossible to enforce and completely ignored in the clubs.
"How do you know there's no touching unless you're one of the participants?" said Mel McDonald, the city official charged with strip club regulation. "It's dark in there. You don't know whether they're half-an-inch away or not. With the 4-foot rule, it's a lot less subjective. Our vice people can enforce it without buying a dance."
City Council meetings to consider the rules have drawn protests from more than 100 of the city's 554 licensed dancers, many toting young children. Tiffiny Neatrour, a 24-year-old dancer at Sands Showgirls, said she wouldn't be able to afford to support her two daughters, ages 1 and 5, without the $400-$600 a day she makes - almost all of it from lap dances. While she's working, her mom or sister helps babysit.
"I don't know why they're bothering. We're not doing prostitution in there, at all," Neatrour said. "I'd be making a lot more money if I was. If they want to go after prostitution why don't they go after the escort services?"
City Council member Richard McIver, whose Finance Committee has held hearings on the regulations, said he is concerned about the effect the regulations could have on the dancers, but "I'm not an employment counselor." He supports the rules because police and city officials have testified that they are needed to regulate the clubs and cut down on alleged "secondary effects" such as prostitution.
Last year, about 197,000 people visited the city's clubs, not including the Lusty Lady peep show, generating $79,000 in admissions taxes. But one of McIver's aides, Paul Elliott, said the general public doesn't seem terribly interested in the debate. The council has received about three dozen letters and e-mails concerning the new rules, most of them opposed to the regulations.
"We get more e-mails about putting synthetic turf on the Lowell Heights playfield," Elliot said.
10/02/05 07:23 EDT
Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
lap dances?
what next.. street protests? geeesh ;-)
Aw, what the heck. Let's go to a ti**y bar!
"It's wiping out an entire industry in Seattle," said Gilbert Levy, a lawyer for Rick's gentleman's club.
***
Gee, what a blow to culture! Good riddance!
Sorry bout this, pissy.
"The rules include requiring dancers to keep 4 feet from customers.....
4 FEET...Yikes, that could make some things...very difficult!! LOL
MM
No problemo. The residents of Washington can easily travel down to Portland. We have lap dances, totally nude dancing, live sex shows and prostitution 24/7 here. Live sex shows were just legalized by the Oregon Supreme Court last week. This whole state is corrupt. Including the state Bar and the court system. Gangs murder witnesses and simply walk away because no one will talk. Drug dealer openly sell drugs at all the bus stops and Max stops downtown. Bus drivers are afraid of gang retaliation. The jails are revolving door lock-ups because the state cannot afford better. Just a few reasons to be happy if you live in the Peoples Republic of Oregon.
Seemingly, Mrs. Grundy is in charge of every town council, county commission, state legislature, congress, and the White House.
I suspect there are some blocks in Tampa with more than that!
Is the whole state like that or just as you get closer to the Washington border.
I'm from Northern California and I've found the southern, inland part of Oregon to be red state-ish. Northern, non-coastal California is pretty red but it's slowly turning purple as the blue staters flee the hellholes they have created.
"I don't know why they're bothering. We're not doing prostitution in there, at all," Neatrour said. "I'd be making a lot more money if I was. If they want to go after prostitution why don't they go after the escort services?"
Leave it to the @#$@!%@$# stripper to drive a Mack truck through the hole in the nannies' argument for this kind of regulation.
Hole...hobags...Seattle...congruity with Courtney Love noted.
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