Courts have ruled: Strippers work not covered by 1st amendment

[LynneSin]

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/15079402.htm

Court: Strippers' work not covered

By the First Amendment, that is. An Atlantic City go-go bar lost its challenge to the state's law against lewdness.
By Troy Graham
Inquirer Staff Writer

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has ruled on a legal question that could have far-reaching consequences for bachelor parties and lonely men.

Do strippers have a First Amendment right to do that thing they do?

Apparently not.

The decision came Tuesday in the case of an Atlantic City go-go bar, the Moulin Rouge, that was cited three years ago for violating New Jersey's lewdness standards.

State troopers - conducting perhaps the most sought-after undercover operation in history - observed dancers there rubbing themselves and their patrons, including one of the officers, in sexually explicit ways.

The Moulin Rouge paid the state Division of Alcohol Beverage Control a $10,000 fine to keep its liquor license, then immediately challenged the state's regulation against "any lewdness or immoral activity."

"The courts in New Jersey have described lewdness as... 'erotic excitation,' whatever the hell that means," said Daniel A. Silver, a First Amendment lawyer from Connecticut who argued on behalf of the Moulin Rouge.

He said the regulation was unconstitutional - and wrongly applied to the Moulin Rouge dancers.