Results tagged “fourfootrule”

Monday, after posting our pro-lap dance response to Susan Paynter's PI column, we received an email from an anonymous local stripper:

I just read your defense of your right to make women touch you sexually for pay and was wondering:

Continue reading "Seattlest Interviews an Anti-Lap-Dance Stripper"

Susan Paynter thinks all the talk about "freedom of speech" around Referendum 1 (the four-foot rule, etc.) is a ruse -- what the clubs really want to keep "legal" is prostitution:

If we want a vote, up or down, on legalizing prostitution, then, in the words of G.W. Bush, bring it on. But if, outside of Nevada, we still oppose the oldest profession when it is practiced on the street, do we ignore it when it's inside a club that may soon be built next to your house?

Dan Savage insists "There’s no prostitution at Rick’s, folks. Just hard-up guys with lumps in their pants tossing twenties at pretty girls." But Paynter quotes an older version of her own column and insists she knows what really "what really happens in the darkened corners of these clubs":

"Although touching is supposedly forbidden, in the less-lighted recesses of at least two of the clubs, men reported seeing 'dancers' opening patrons' pants, putting on condoms and, at the very least, rubbing private parts through men's clothing to the point of some tough laundry stains."

If Paynter's right, though, she undercuts her own argument: people who are really interested can already tell when someone's crossing the line between lap dances and prostitution, without brighter lights or a four-foot rule in place. And we suspect they don't need to spend $10,000 on lap dances to figure it out.

Are we more Lake Forest Parkish or Minneapolisesque?

Four-foot rules exist in Bellevue, Everett, Federal Way, Kirkland, Lake Forest Park and Tacoma, according to city reports. Burien requires dancers to be at least 10 feet away from patrons, while Renton prohibits off-stage performances altogether.

Continue reading "Our Choice Is Clear"

Things we learned at trivia last night:

Strip club owners got their wish: The referendum to overturn Nanny Nickels' anti-ecdysiast laws will be on the ballot in November, not September. At least, so says the PI:

The City Council settled the question Monday of when the proposal should go to voters -- not whether it should. That was decided for politicians some time ago when the strip-club industry collected sufficient petition signatures to challenge new rules banning lap dances and dim lighting in clubs.

Continue reading "A Chicken in Every Pot, A Lap Dance in Every Strip Club"