COLUMBUS, OH — The Ohio Supreme Court said no yesterday to a strip-club referendum that supporters hoped to push onto next week’s general election. Dancers For Democracy and other groups argued that Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner improperly rejected tens of thousands of signatures that the committee filed while seeking to qualify for the statewide ballot.
New restrictions on strip clubs and other sexually-oriented businesses were sought by Citizens for Community Values (CCV) in Sharonville, which successfully petitioned the Ohio General Assembly and got the ball rolling.
“State Issue 1 was always about more than just the rights of adult businesses and their customers,” said Luke Liakos, manager of a Dayton area club and president of the Buckeye Association of Club Executives. “Its true mission was the preservation of free expression and free enterprise. Our legislative branch passed a law that tramples on these rights. Today, the judicial branch has refused to let the people get their rights back.”
The new law, currently in effect, forces clubs to close between midnight and 6:00am and prevent nudity after midnight in clubs that have liquor licenses that are allowed to be open after midnight. It will also prohibit physical contact of any kind between patrons and nude or semi-nude performers.
In a unanimous decision from the judges, the court said the dancers and club owners have a right to demand that the issue appear on the ballot but that Brunner does not have a duty to comply with their wishes.
“Accepting [the clubs’] construction of [the Ohio Constitution] would permit petitioners to correct an insufficient referendum petition by filing a supplemental petition consisting entirely of invalid signatures less than 40 days before the election,” the court stated. “We will not adopt this absurd result, which would authorize election fraud.”
The club owners have filed a case in federal court challenging the constitutionality of the law. A hearing is set for this on November 16th in Cleveland.
