Prohibiting Nude Dancing In Bars Does Not Violate First Amendment Rights

Prohibiting nude and seminude dancing in establishments that serve alcoholic beverages does not violate the dancer’s First Amendment rights of expression, the Illinois Supreme Court said.

The court upheld the validity of a City of Chicago ordinance that bans nude and semi-nude dancing in licensed establishments selling liquor by the drink. If dancers want to dance in the nude, they can do so in places that do not sell alcoholic beverages, the court said.

Chicago sought to enforce its ordinance prohibiting any employee, entertainer or patron to engage in any live act, demonstration, dance or exhibition that exposes to public view “his or her genitals, pubic hair, buttocks . . . or any portion of the female breast . . . .” Pooh Bah, a club on North Kingsbury challenged the ordinance as violating the First Amendment right to free speech. Chicago also sought to revoke the club’s liquor license.

The court found that the ordinance “permits venues to offer nude and seminude dancing, and such establishments operate lawfully in the City featuring performers who wear even less than the dancers at Pooh Bah’s club. The only thing the City does not permit is for the two activities to be combined on the same premises and at the same time. Such a restriction is within the City’s authority to impose, for the first amendment does not entitle a bar, its dancers or its patrons to have alcohol available during a presentation of nude or seminude dancing.”

In addition, the ordinance furthers the government’s interest in avoiding the “negative secondary effects which result from the sale and consumption of alcohol at adult entertainment establishments.” This secondary effect was shown in Chicago during the late 1970s and mid-1980s in Chicago’s Rush Street area when strip clubs served alcohol. “During that time, prostitution in and around the clubs was pervasive,” the court wrote.

Pooh Bah also sought to have the ordinance declared unconstitutional because the language was “vague.” In particular, Pooh Bah complained that among other wording the term “buttocks” was unconstitutionally vague. The court rejected this contention stating that “the term can be understood by persons of ordinary intelligence.”

City of Chicago v. Pooh Bah, Illinois Supreme Ct. No. 99804, October 5, 2006.

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