Brainstorming with the San Antonio City Council

"Hey! I've got an idea! Let's make strippers wear ID badges!"

Comments

[GH]

This is certainly one for the "if you can't be just, be arbitrary" files.

[Brian]

Where are they going to put them?

[Tre]

Brian, I have some ideas, but posting them here would probably be inappropriate

[Max]

Wouldn't it just be easier to brand them with a scarlet S, or stitch one onto their clothes?

[Mo]

You know those LED signs that spell out words when moved rapidly (or if you move your head rapidly)? Why not set one of those bad boys up on a tassle? As it spins, you'll be able to make out the ID info.

[Steve]

What kind of picture is going to go on the badge? And how many IDs will say "Bambi" or "Ginger"?

That last question is actually a serious problem. You can't have strippers walking around with badges that tell customers their real names!

[Stevo Darkly]

There hasn't been a "We don't need no steenking badges!" comment yet?

(I can't access the Agitator site where I am now, so apologies if what I'm saying doesn't make sense.)

Steve above makes a good point. Clearly he is a man who knows much about strippers. You don't want any besotted admirers of the dancers to be able to stalk them after hours. The freedom to dance naked, yet anonymously, is a fundamental right.

[thoreau]

The freedom to dance naked, yet anonymously, is a fundamental right.

Any bets on how long it will take some cranky conservative poster to protest that there is no such right?

[Rick Barton]

"Safety" huh? Right. Perhaps the members of the San Antonio City Council should be forced to wear badges warning folks that they are a danger to liberty. But seriously...

Here's the Website of the City of San Antonio City Council, complete with all their phone numbers and emails. Let's let them know how revolted we are at this anti-American and anti-liberty requirement on their fellow citizens. We should also tell them that we will urge any organizations that we are members of not to have conventions in San Antonio until this travesty is repealed. Also, bring up the excellent point that displaying the real names of strippers will actually jeopardize their safety by exposing them to stalkers. When we communicate with these folks, we should of course be polite with them while we demonstrate our indignation.

All of the battles on behalf of liberty aren't big ones and sometimes in localized situations, it's easier for us to make a difference.

http://www.sanantonio.gov/council/?res=1024&ver=true

[Lane]

Nothing new under the sun. Houston has the same silly deal. The very concept of buying an 'occupational license' from the local vice squad is absurd on its face; but it does give those upstanding morality monitors access to the bona fides of every 'exotic entertainer' in town.

Houston's provision was part of a far larger 'sexually oriented business' bill that spent several years in the courts. Wouldn't be surprised if some parts are still floating around the US District Courts.

OK Bambi, just put a rubber band round your ankle. OH, did San Antone also require a 3 foot 'safety zone' around those dangerous curves a la H-town?

[Steve]

They'll pry my strippers from my cold, dead hands! (Or cold, dead lap, as the case may be.)

[Tre]

"They'll pry my strippers from my cold, dead hands! (Or cold, dead lap, as the case may be.)"

There has to be an erection joke in there somewhere.

[Junyo]

"Dancer 1127-A-1245 is really working that pole."
"The cute one?"
"No, that's 2689-F-9842. She gives great lap though. I'm talking about 1127-A-1245, the skanky one with the nice rack."

Problem solved.

[LM]

"No, that's 2689-F-9842. She gives great lap though. I'm talking about 1127-A-1245, the skanky one with the nice rack."

No, I'm pretty sure 1127-D-1245 is the skanky one with the nice rack.

[Drooling Richard]

I read Jesse's link then went through 'bugmenot' to the read his link's reference. It's just another very short article, with no explanation.

I tried some googling stuff like 'san antonio city council stripper id'. Nada.

http://www.sanantonio.gov/clerk/minutes/#keyword draws a blank too. Does anyone with a local newspaper, or a good link, know what the City Council's argument was?

[dave]

Lots of crazy laws with strippers. In NM you can have total nude w/out alcohol but if you serve only the top can come off...

[*]

ID tag or not, as long as they're generous with the knee, I'm happy.

[fyodor]

dave,

That's exactly the way it is around here in the Denver/Boulder, Colorado area, too, though I don't know if it's a state thang or a common local law.

[bob]

One of the articles I found said that the ID's would only have the striper's stage name but that the badge number would match up to a full profile on record at the club. Either way, it's an increcibly stupid idea, but at least this law, it'll only be creepy cops stalking the strippers after hours...

[kwais]

I would like to one up that law. If we are going to take civil liberties away, why discriminate with strippers. I think that everyone should have a bar code. That bar code would contain information including; exactly what that person looks like naked, whether the person has a stalker history, maybe if the person is inclined to take their clothes off for money, and any STD's the person might have.

I would call it the "Truth in Dating Law".

[Bobster]

Why doesn't the City Council insist that the I.D. tags take the form of shirts and pants? (Sized to fit of course!) Problem solved?

[ScrewTape]

LOL Kwais, "Truth in Dating Law", because we have a RIGHT to know everything about who we are dating!!

Hmmm...We should be careful joking about that or someone will really try to make it a right(like health care and retirement funds).

[antitax ogress]

Here's a link to the Reuters story:

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=7129162

They banned nude dancing and lap dancing and admit it's an effort to "curb the number of clubs in the city..."

I read somewhere (a few years ago) that extended stay hotels had more crime connected to them than strip joints.

[Larry A]

As I remember from our SA TV news the arguments were:
1) We need to keep track of who works in the industry. (Apparently pay/employment records aren't enough.)
2) It will prevent underage workers. (Yeah. And illegal aliens, etc. Right.)
3) It will protect the customers. (From what?)

At least they didn't say that it was to test the stripper's vocational skills or insure the quality of their work. I bet they'd have a raft of applicants for that job.

As for stalking, a man who can concentrate on reading an ID card while a stripper is working him probably isn't going to be a problem. But much of the information on vocational licenses is public record.

[agentalbert]

"The freedom to dance naked, yet anonymously, is a fundamental right.

Any bets on how long it will take some cranky conservative poster to protest that there is no such right?"

Well, Thoreau, where is that right? It may very well be a stupid law, but that doesn't make it ipso facto unconstitutional.

[Chuck]

Jesse, you've got the title wrong. It should be, "BrainFARTing with the San Antonio City Council."

[Rick Barton]

It may very well be a stupid law, but that doesn't make it ipso facto unconstitutional.

But it is anyway. The intent of the 1st amendment is to protect expression. Is stripping not expression? Dancing is.

[Rick Barton]

...Stripping is a form of dancing so it too is expression, and there for protected by our Constitution. QED

[drooling richard]

From antitax ogress's Reuters link:

Thanks Mr. Ogress.

"My constituents are tired of seeing these clubs drive down their property values," ," said city council member Chip Haas.

That's not a bad argument. Kinda like the argument for prohibitting someone who buys a house in a neighborhood where colonial architecture is the norm from paint his house day-glow green.

Even if a public agency, like a city council, was not authorized to make rules like this, the same rules would soon evolve through private landowner covenants.

[kwais]

So here is an honest question in that vein;

What are the limitations of state and local governments in the constitution? Railing against the excesses of the Federal Govt is nice, but what is the use if local govts can do 10 times more.

Can they make any rule they want to as longs as it is not determined a violation of one of the Ammendments?

I think you might lose out in your efforts to have stripping sanctioned as free speach. Yet a local government that can forbit it because the church group does not approve, seems like tyranny to me.

I don't care so much for strip clubs ( not since I got kicked out of one). But I do care about my freedom.

[Jesse Walker]

Even if a public agency, like a city council, was not authorized to make rules like this, the same rules would soon evolve through private landowner covenants.

While I can easily imagine private covenants that keep strip clubs out of certain neighborhoods, I have a hard time imagining covenants that require strippers to wear ID badges.

[drooling richard]

Jesse,

Yes, I just have to guess that the City Council got some legal advice that the best stategy would be to pester the strip clubs away rather than to attack them head on. The ID badge requirement provides more fodder for jokes than some other similar zoning constraints.

Even in the most permissive areas of the country it has become illegal to host a Bacchanalian revelry. Which in practical term means you cannot have a stripper on your lap and your cocktail in your hand at the same time.

Alas.

[Dan]

Stripping is a form of dancing so it too is expression, and there for protected by our Constitution

Minor point: it is protected by Supreme Court rulings, not by the Constitution. The right to freedom of expression is a invention of the Court, albeit a welcome one; it is never mentioned in the Constitution itself.

Much as I enjoy strip clubs, I'm skeptical that the founders intended for the Constitution to protect people's right to get naked in public. I can see Ben Franklin going for it, but not some of the stuffier ones. It is not clear that restrictions on strip clubs are unconstitutional.

However, forcing someone to wear an ID tag might violate their first amendment rights by forcing them to publish something they don't want to.