Let’s remember when the Seattle City Council passed a 4-foot rule, regulating strip clubs, on this day in 2005 (October 2)
For seventeen years prior, Seattle had a plan for dealing with strip clubs, impose an annual moratorium on any new strip clubs while they pretended to study the issue. The measure was unconstitutional, and everyone knew it, but remained in place until someone wanted to open a new strip club and then they would surely lose in court. To combat this, Mayor Greg Nickels put forth a bill that would closely regulate strip clubs so that it would make opening a new club unattractive to potential business owners.
The PI reported at the time:
The Seattle City Council narrowly approved a stricter code of conduct for Seattle strip clubs Monday after lengthy debate and a renewed demand for zoning laws outlining where new clubs can locate.
The adopted rules require a four-foot distance between dancers and customers, brighter lighting, more clothes, tip jars and bans on drapes or doors that shield parts of the club from view.
The ordinance also makes customers as well as entertainers subject to the new rules.
The legislation is aimed at making the Seattle strip club business less lucrative and to slow potential expansion of clubs in the city. Its approval comes just weeks after a federal judge ruled that the city’s 17-year moratorium on allowing news strip clubs was unconstitutional.
Council members who opposed the stricter rules Monday said the city would be better off developing zoning and land use regulations for the clubs instead of trying to manage the businesses.
The ordinance gives Nickels until Jan 2 to submit land-use regulations for strip clubs to the city council.
Council members requested those regulation two years ago and were told that it was not a city priority and resources were not available.
“It took a lawsuit before there was any action,” said Councilman Peter Steinbrueck.
The new rules go into effect either 180 days after the mayor signs the law, or 30 days after the mayor submits proposed zoning rules for club locations, whichever is later.
Steinbrueck voted against code of conduct, along with Nick Licata, Tom Rasmussen and Jean Godden.
Fortunately, voters overturned the bill a year later. Per the Associated Press:
Like many residents of this famously liberal city, Iris Nicholas was baffled when the City Council passed strict regulations on strip clubs, including a lap dance ban, last year.
Where did this prudish streak come from, she wondered.
No bother. The city’s voters rejected the new rules by a 2-to-1 margin last week, rendering the city safe for lap dances once again. It was especially good news for Nicholas, who makes her living in black fishnets, 7-inch stilettos and not much else.
The vote closes one chapter in Seattle’s contentious relationship with the strip club industry — a two-decade effort to prevent or, more recently, gently dissuade new cabarets from opening within city limits. With potential owners no longer fearing the “4-foot rule,” Mayor Greg Nickels is resigned to new clubs opening. He’s calling on the City Council to hurry up and do the politically sensitive work of determining where to allow them.
“There is money to be made in strip clubs, and unfortunately right now we’re in a position where they could go in any neighborhood business district in the city,” Nickels warned at a news conference last week.
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