Strip Club Cover Charge Is Legal

[The Straight Story]

Strip Club Cover Charge Is Legal

DALLAS (CN) - The U.S. Supreme Court refused a request from the state's strip club industry to review whether Texas' $5 cover charge violates free speech.

Texas' Sexually Oriented Business Fee Act - or "pole" tax - became law in 2007 and was intended to fund sexual assault and low-income health insurance programs.

The all-Republican Texas Supreme Court unanimously ruled in August that the fee was constitutional, that the fee is too small to be a burden on free speech and that the state has a legitimate interest in fighting the secondary effects of violence associated with adult entertainment and alcohol.

Justice Nathan Hecht wrote that the tax was not directed at the expression of nude dancing, but at the "secondary effects of nude dancing when alcohol is being consumed." He suggested that businesses can "avoid the fee altogether simply by not allowing alcohol to be consumed."

http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/01/30/43441.htm

[mysuzuki2]

1. Shouldn't it be more accurately called an "uncover charge"?

[TheWraith]

2. I have to sigh at the stupidity of that.

Specifically, the premise that somehow, half-drunk men entrancedly watching naked women in a very tightly controlled environment is more prone to create "secondary effects of violence and sexual assault" than, say, getting drunk at a regular bar where there's little to no security or safety.

[Initech]

3. I'm a guy and I hate strip clubs - always have always will.

[redqueen]

4. Are you 100% certain the statistics don't bear that out? nt

[arbusto_baboso]

7. Well, there are absolutely no stats that support an opposite assertion.

[surfdog]

6. I agree

[safeinOhio]

5. Just another

"pay to play" tax.