CLEVELAND — A legal challenge of Ohio’s new adult entertainment law began on Thursday. Opponents of the new law — which completely bans dancer/patron touching, among other stipulations — are testing its constitutionality.
U.S. District Judge Solomon Oliver Jr. will oversee the challenge. According to a recent report, seventeen attorneys representing adult businesses, the state of Ohio and cities that must enforce the law filled the Cleveland courtroom.
The adult law, pushed through by Cincinnati-based anti-porn group Citizens for Community Values, was adopted by the Republican-controlled state Legislature in May, and allowed to become law by Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland without his signature, according to the Associated Press.
The law prohibits nude or semi-nude performing between midnight and 6 a.m. and requires that a distance of six feet be maintained between dancers and customers at all times – even when the dancers are fully dressed.
A petition attempt in October to fight the anti-adult law from going into effect fell short. Vote No on Issue 1 Committee, the group fighting the strip-club law, failed to gather the required number of signatures from at least 44 of the 88 Ohio counties.
The group had to collect just over 241,000 signatures of people who voted in the last gubernatorial election, and at least 3% of those signatures had to be from voters in each of 44 of Ohio's 88 counties. All of the votes have not yet been tallied, but so far the group has submitted sufficient names in just 15 counties.
Dozens of studies across the country that concluded restrictions on adult entertainment can prevent an increase in crime were unscientific, Daniel Linz, a communications and law and society professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara who has reviewed such studies, told the Associated Press.
Linz will testify on behalf of Ohio’s adult-oriented businesses.
According to the AP report, the lawsuit, which names nearly 70 county prosecutors and local officials whose job it is to enforce the law, seeks a temporary restraining order or a permanent injunction to block enforcement of the new restrictions.
Testimony is expected to continue through Monday.
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