U.S. cities follow Pennsylvania town's lead in banning nude dancing

By The Associated Press

07.09.01

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ERIE, Pa. — The city's nude dancing ordinance, tried and found to be true by the U.S. Supreme Court last year, is making the city's law department a mecca for other municipalities looking to regulate strip clubs.

The ordinance was unique in that it didn't seek — at least overtly — to ban nude dancing on its own merits, which the Supreme Court has struck down repeatedly as an affront to free expression.

Instead, Erie targeted the undesirable "secondary effects" allegedly spawned by such businesses, such as prostitution and lower property values, and argued that making dancers wear pasties and G-strings turned down the heat at such clubs — and the likelihood that ill effects would boil over into the community at large.

"It has given every city a blueprint for banning nude dancing," said Ken Paulson, a critic of the ruling and executive director of the First Amendment Center.

"At the time (of the March 2000 ruling) I said nude dancing would go the way of the eight-track tapes of adult entertainment. Fondly remembered by some, but nonexistent," Paulson said.

Since the decision regarding the Kandyland strip club, 22 states and scores of municipalities have tightened or considered laws that make it harder for nude dance clubs to operate, according to the American Bar Association.

The case, City of Erie v. PAP's A.M., is named for the Erie club that prompted the 1994 ordinance which was unanimously shot down by the state Supreme Court but upheld 6-3 by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Many of the new laws are modeled after Erie's ordinance, copies of which lawmakers still request on a weekly basis, said city Solicitor Greg Karle.

"It was an avalanche of calls when it (the ruling) first came out. Now it's only one or two calls a week," Karle said. "It doesn't surprise me. Once the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the ordinance, I knew we'd get a lot of calls."

"No question, it's happening all over the country," said Paul McGeady, general counsel of Morality in Media and director of the anti-pornography group's National Obscenity Law Center in New York City.

"Erie is the leading case on this. I assume that will be the end of this type of dancing if communities adopt similar ordinances," McGeady said.

In Michigan, the Kandyland case is being used to bolster an "adult entertainment package" of bills that would expand regulations governing how close nude dance clubs and adult bookstores can be to schools and churches, their hours of operation and their employment practices.

"Erie dealt with the local prohibition of nude dancing, but Erie was also about broadening the secondary-effects argument, and we certainly used that," said Michigan Republican state Sen. William Van Regenmorter.

Paulson said the Erie law is dangerous, and that society was better off when municipalities used zoning laws not to ban nude dancing, but to move it to the outskirts of town or other appropriate places.

"It is not about nude dancing," Paulson said. "It is about using a law to ban what is currently constitutionally protected speech. What it says is, if you can prove speech has had a bad effect in the community, you can ban it, not simply move it."

"Well, that has some other implications," Paulson said.

McGeady said that doesn't matter — nor does it matter whether or not it can be proven that nude dance clubs even produce adverse secondary effects.

"If (a lawmaker) has a gut feeling that bad stuff will occur because of one of those places, that's enough. You don't need scientific evidence to pass laws," McGeady said.

"The people who frequent these places are looking for titillation, and they are not going to get that if the gal covers up," McGeady said. "It cuts down on the business and gives less incentive to get into the business. That will cut down on the other problems, and all these problems are interrelated."

Related

Kandyland decision a new First Amendment landmark
Ruling in nude-dancing case has 'grave implications for basic free speech principles,' writes dissenting Justice Stevens.  04.03.00

Cities can't ban nude dancing for fear of effect on neighborhood
Pennsylvania high court rules in Kandyland club case sent back to it by U.S. Supreme Court.  12.23.02