Bill would force a return of topless dancers’ pasties in Chesapeake

CHESAPEAKE

About seven months ago, customers of Headlights and J.B.’s Gallery of Girls saw a change in the 50 or so dancers at the Chesapeake clubs:

The women’s pasties were gone.

The, er, uncovering was the result of a federal judge’s ruling last year that a Virginia law prohibiting lewd conduct at establishments with liquor licenses was unconstitutional and too broad.

Come July, however, the owner of the two Chesapeake clubs said a newly approved House of Delegates bill will force him and his dancers to bring back the nipple covers – or face losing his mixed beverage licenses.

The Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control “needs to get out of the business of regulating topless dancing,” said Buddy Brown, who owns the two Chesapeake clubs.

Del. John Cosgrove, R-Chesapeake, who sponsored the bill, said it will put ABC back on “constitutional footing” to enforce the law. Cosgrove argued Thursday that dancers at the Chesapeake clubs never had the right to go completely topless, despite the federal ruling last summer.

“The law had really never changed,” Cosgrove said. Once the judge prohibited ABC agents from enforcing it, club owners “just knew they could get away with it,” he said.

ABC agents have long been able to ticket restaurants or clubs that are deemed to have noisy, disorderly or lewd conduct on premises.

For Brown and his clubs on George Washington Highway, this meant all of his dancers had to wear pasties.

If the pasties fell off, Brown knew he could face a violation. So some of the dancers would use super-strength glue or double-sided carpet tape to keep them on, he said.

The Aug. 2, 2007, ruling of U.S. District Judge Walter D. Kelley Jr. changed all that, at least for a few months. The ruling was issued after a challenge to the law by six South Hampton Roads nightclubs repeatedly cited for disorderly and lewd conduct.

ABC asked for an emergency action to “restore the status quo with respect to the regulation of nudity and sexually oriented behavior” in licensed establishments, according to state documents.

Brown said business increased after his dancers went completely topless, but it wasn’t long before word got to Cosgrove .

A modified version of Cosgrove’s bill was approved by the General Assembly. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has not signed it yet, a spokesman said.

The bill says an establishment can have its mixed beverage license suspended or revoked if there is entertainment of an “obscene” nature, “entertainment commonly called stripteasing, topless entertaining, or entertainment that has employees who are not clad both above and below the waist.” Brown feels this part of the bill is unfair.

“Who’s to say striptease isn’t artistic?” he asked.

For Brown’s club, dancers will cover up with pasties starting July 1. He said he will comply if Kaine signs the bill.

But he said he might challenge it.

Mike Saewitz, (757) 222-5207, mike.saewitz@pilotonline.com