Strip clubs in Dallas were recently dealt a legal blow in their fight to nullify a City ordinance regulating their hours of operation, according to a report by KERA News:
“A federal judge has denied a group of Dallas strip clubs’ request to stop the city from requiring sexually oriented businesses to close between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. daily.
“Attorneys for XTC Cabaret, Silver City Cabaret and Tiger Cabaret argued in a suit filed earlier this year the ordinance and the way Dallas police enforce it are unconstitutional. XTC in particular was willing to comply with the ordinance by not operating as a sexually oriented business after 2 a.m. — which police didn’t accept.
“U.S. District Judge Jane Boyle ruled Thursday the plaintiffs’ claims are unlikely to succeed in a court of law and denied their request for a preliminary injunction more than two weeks after a hearing on the motion.
“In her ruling, Boyle said the businesses were sexually oriented regardless of what time of day they stopped operating as such.
“’The Ordinance requires [sexually oriented businesses] to be closed after 2:00 a.m. regardless of the business’s intended activities,’ Boyle wrote. ‘Thus, their conduct clearly falls within the scope of the Ordinance independent of the policy.’
“The argument that XTC and other clubs aren’t primarily sexually oriented because they only operate as such some of the time ‘strains credulity,’ Boyle said.
“’Whether a business is [sexually oriented] depends on its operations generally or its primary purpose, not the nature of its operations during a specific, limited window of time,’ she wrote, citing the language of the city’s ordinance. ‘To allow a business to skirt the requirements of Chapter 41A whenever it is not engaged in the specific activity that renders it an SOB would vitiate the City’s ability to enforce the law.’
“Lawyers for the business owners did not respond to requests for comment Friday morning. The city of Dallas declined to comment due to pending litigation.”
To read the entire article by KERA News, please click HERE.