Legal News

Is Nude Dancing an Art Form? Iowa Supremes Might Decide

By Dan Slater

Shotgun Geniez Plaza, Hamburg, Iowa.

As we noted last month, a Pennsylvania woman is suing her municipality for refusing to allow her to open a dance studio that features pole-dancing exercise classes, power lap dance and “SeXXXercise.” Meanwhile, the state attorney general in Iowa is up in arms over a recent ruling that a strip club is protected under a law allowing nudity in any “theater, concert hall, art center, museum or similar establishments” devoted to the arts or theatrical performances.

Iowa’s Assistant AG Mary Tabor said the state is seeking a review of Judge Timothy O’Grady’s August decision. In the case, the state had reportedly charged Clarence Judy, then-owner of the strip club Shotgun Geniez, with violating the public indecent exposure law after a 17-year-old girl climbed on the stage and stripped off her clothes in July 2007. Here’s the AP report.

“The district court found that while this was primarily a strip club, that the theater exemption still applies. We’re just asking for a different interpretation of those exemptions,” Tabor told the AP. “If they have a stage and have lighting, they fall into the theater exemptions. I think minors who come into those facilities aren’t protected as the Legislature envisioned that they should be,” Tabor said. She added: “We’re interested in making sure the [theater] exception doesn’t swallow the rule [that minors can’t dance nude].”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on September 30, 2008 (boomark / email).