Adult Entertainment in USA

Stripper Crystal Ludwig's attempt to have full nudity protected as free speech was shot down this week by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Ludwig, an exotic dancer at the now defunct Garter Belt strip club in Detroit, challenged Van Buren Township's ban on full nudity, saying the ban violated her First Amendment rights.

The club itself and another dancer previously sued the township located in a rural area of Wayne County and lost their cases. The court ruled that the decision against Garter Belt also applied to her.

The only proof necessary to realize that the intention of Missouri's new strip club law is to drive all clubs out of the state is the fact that it was drafted with the help of the Missouri/Kansas faction of the American Family Association.

A perfect illustration of the insidious and anti-American influence of this and other like-minded groups is the success they have had getting supposedly lethal laws like the strip club ordinances either passed or in motion in states like Missouri, Ohio and Kansas, as well as in counties and cities throughout the nation. These ordinances are generally similar, imposing restrictions on hours of operation, dress codes, and the amount of physical contact allowed between dancers and customers, if any, especially if alcohol is served.

But the Kansas City Star has reported that one club in the state, Bazooka's, is testing the limitations of the law in a very creative way, and thus far is not only getting away with it, but is creating very happy customers as a result.

Bazooka's, an adult entertainment venue in downtown Kansas City, now offers videos of its nude and seminude dancers on large, flat-screen televisions adjacent to the stage, the paper reported. While a dancer performs live with her intimate areas covered, as the law requires, a video of the same dancer---with those areas exposed---appears on the screens.

According to the club's owner, Dick Snow, the idea behind the videos is to meet the language of the law while still allowing the club to stay open after midnight, while also giving his clientele what they came for.

A spokesman for the Kansas City Police Department said the department had received no complaints about Bazooka's videos and said it did not appear that the establishment was violating any local or state laws, reported the Star.

Nine months after Missouri implemented further restrictions on the state's adult businesses, at least two local strip clubs are continuing pretty much as before relying on the authorities' lax enforcement of their X-rated entertainment.

Kansas City Star reporters recently observed more than a dozen female dancers at Bazooka's and Temptations whose entire breasts were visible. Although state law allows such semi-nude exposure, clubs that regularly offer it must close at midnight. Both downtown clubs, however, remained open and admitted customers well past that closing deadline.

Some dancers also appeared on stages less than six feet from patrons, another violation of the statute. Reporters saw chairs lining the elevated stages in both clubs, placing some customers only inches from performers.

But Dick Bryant, a lawyer for Kansas City's adult entertainment industry, said the clubs are following the law, in part because he claimed the dancers only appear to be topless. The exposed breasts, he said, are actually covered by a thin layer of opaque latex. Once they're covered, none of the rest of the law applies, Bryant argued.

He also said clubs are observing other parts of the new law, including rules that prohibit full nudity and semi-nude dancers from touching customers. The Star found those regulations, as well as those involving the sale of alcohol, were being followed.

After a state court judge refused to delay implementation of the new rules, a coalition of strip club owners sought a Missouri Supreme Court ruling that its provisions are unconstitutional. A decision is expected later this year.

With the end of the 2011 legislative session nearing, socially conservative members of the Kansas legislature turned down a last chance to keep a bill alive that would have imposed severe restrictions on adult entertainment business in the state. The vote, which took place on the Senate, failed to garner the 24 votes necessary to approve a motion by Sen. Steve Abrams that would have pulled the bill out of committee and onto the Senate floor for a vote.

Without a word of debate, reported the Tokepa Capital-Journal, the chamber voted 17-22 to reject Abrams' motion.

According to the Capital-Journal, Abrams, who could have probably seen a compromise bill passed by both chambers, said the state had an obligation to bring order to sexually oriented businesses that damage communities with inspiring criminal behavior and creating other negative secondary effects.