If you own, run, and work in Flagstaff adult businesses, you'll have to be licensed now. The City Council has approved it unanimously despite testimony from nude dancers and others denying their businesses involve drugs, sex and other crimes.
The new law requires managers, owners, and employees in adult entertainment businesses to apply for licenses and undergo criminal background checks, the Associated Press says. Prior convictions for sex offenses or other criminal violations could mean disqualification.
A worker would pay $100 for the initial license and $25 a year to renew, the AP says, while business licenses would cost $250 a year.
Dancer Regine Hernandez opposed the licensing ordinance. "I believe it's an invasion of privacy to know who I live with and what they've done," she told the council meeting. "I am a mother of a 4-year-old daughter. We are consenting adults trying to make a living.
"For those of you who think it's an easy job, do you know what it's like to take your clothes off and be ridiculed?" she continued. "Do you know what it's like to apply for another job, maybe to get out of the business, and to have people look at you funny? This is a choice I make and I'm doing nothing wrong."
But City Councilman Norm Wallen dismissed that as an overreaction. "Other than being offended by a stigma," he said at the meeting, "I'm not sure what the employees are objecting to."
