HUNTSVILLE, AL — State Attorney General Troy King has made Madison County prosecutors determined to send a strip club owner to jail very unhappy by reminding them of a niggling detail: the federal constitution is still the law of the land.Prosecutors have wanted desperately to make obscenity charges against 35-year-old Fantasia nightclub owner Shannon Dawn Reliford stick hard enough to close down not only her club, but any other club that dared to allow its dancers to show their so-called “private parts” during work.
Unfortunately for the prosecutors, King’s office remembered that, as chief deputy attorney general Keith Miller put it, “A federal judge had indicated that he would strike down the Alabama obscenity law if it came before him.”
In other words, the only way to retain the current obscenity law is not to challenge it with legal cases. Or at least not this one.
Chris Bence, a representative for the attorney general’s office went so far as to say “That would have meant men and women dancing naked on tables in any nightclub and juke joint in Alabama.”
Anything but that!
The Fantasia club had been raided on December 29th and Reliford arrested and charged with three counts of obscenity violations, in addition to one count of employing a minor as a nude dancer. Additionally, 42-year-old club manager David Joseph Seagroves was also taken into custody on three obscenity charges.
According to deputies, the Fantasia dancers were showing more flesh than Alabama law allows, as well as letting customers know that big tips could result in extra special sexual attention.
Although the Fantasia trial was supposed to begin this past Monday, the fact that all charges were dropped against the two in November meant that settlement paperwork in the federal case was filed on December 1st. Interestingly enough, it was a restraining order request by a Birmingham club owner against King, the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, and Jefferson County Sheriff Mike Hale in U.S. District Court that led to the dropping of charges. The owner had also insisted that the court examine and rule on the constitutionality of the state’s anti-obscenity law, anticipating a crackdown on clubs that both sell alcoholic beverages and allow exotic dancing.
Passed in 1998, the state’s code restricts clubs from allowing any entertainers from displaying their genitals. Instead, they must at all times be covered by a completely opaque covering. Some dancers have tried to work around this requirement by applying theatrical grade liquid latex to their bodies.
As things stand now, nobody’s going to jail and nobody’s getting their club shut down, but everyone involved with the complaint has agreed to make sure their dancers are properly concealed, thus neatly avoiding the entire constitutionality issue, something that could not have been agreed upon had the criminal charges against Reliford and Seagroves been allowed to progress.
In addition to the owner and manager of Fantasia, another five people were arrested during the late 2005 raid, including a 25-year-old man accused of possessing cocaine, and four dancers said to have solicited prostitution. Two of the girls have since had their charges dismissed for lack of a case, whereas a third was found guilty and the fourth has filed an appeal in Madison County Circuit Court.
