PHILADELPHIA, PA — It’s been 50 years since anyone in Philadelphia has been able to legally toss back a cold one and watch a cutie gyrate on their lap while in an exotic dance establishment. Thanks to a recent federal appeals decision, happy days are here again.Anti-pornography groups have naturally responded by insisting that the city will now see a plague of strip clubs descend upon it. Actual strip club owners don’t think that’s very likely.
According to Bob Bober, manager of Club Royale, located in what is referred to as the “Strip District,” most local dancers have little if any interest in exploring the lap dance option. Instead, Bober believes they “don’t want to go too far” and are quite content with the status quo. Bober also contends that club owners are equally disinterested in hiring the additional security that might be necessary were they to expand their services.
At issue was a Pennsylvania Liquor Code statute which prohibited “lewd” conduct in establishments that sold or served alcohol. Violators of the statute faced misdemeanor punishments of up to a year of jail time, $5,000 in fines, and the loss of their liquor license.
Although it’s possible that the state attorney general could appeal the unanimous 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision, state police can no longer enforce the previous statute, which was deemed to be “unconstitutionally overbroad” and an infringement of legal speech.
The court’s decision was not necessarily and endorsement of lap dances and whiskey shots, however, since one of its objections concerned the fact that the statute, as written, could have been applied to theaters or playhouses.
Dorn Checkley, director of the Pittsburgh Coalition Against Pornography insists that the court “was feverishly paranoid in its decision,” since state police have never enforced the law against any businesses other than strip clubs. “Sexually-oriented businesses want lap dances and full nudity,” he insists, “That’s their goal, and the court just gave it to them on a platter. They’re taking this to the bank, all because the court decides they can’t figure out what ‘lewd entertainment’ means.”
Contrary to Checkley’s assurances, other club owners echo Bober’s take on the future of exotic entertainment in Pittsburgh. “They have to have some rules,” Albert Bortz, owner of Blush, Downtown observed. In the business for 36 years, Bortz concludes that “I think they just have to change the law and make it more specific. I do agree that it was too vague.”
Upheld twice by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court but knocked down during its first federal court challenge, the state’s attorney general’s office is reviewing the decision and determining whether to appeal or ask for a stay of the ruling. The state legislature could also try to create a more specific, but constitutional, law. Checkley prophecies that it could take five years for the matter to be resolved, something state officials do not disagree with.
David Thomas, executive director of the Pennsylvania House Liquor Control Committee expects there will be action, however long it may take. “It’s a long-standing practice in Pennsylvania to prohibit that kind of entertainment,” he explains. “I believe it would still be the will of the General Assembly to uphold that.”
