Although there are over one million residents and 59,000 businesses there, there isn't a single topless bar in Oakland County, Michigan.
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Not coincidentally, neighboring Wayne County leads the state with 43 topless activity permits. That includes five just across from the Oakland County border.
As might be expected, a demand persists for adult entertainment, and creative club owners have found ways to tap into it - at least tap it as much as local authorities will let them. One bar features a $100 admission VIP room where guests can watch women in swimsuits take showers. Another, run by Larry Dixon, is known as a "bikini dance bar" featuring women in swimsuits dancing on a stage.
"They're scantily clad, but they're not undressed," Dixon said. "It's always been a good business."
Dixon said he once tried to get a topless license. City officials protested, and he gave up.
"If a person did it now, it would probably be too expensive," he said.
In Oxford, the owners of Zim's Diner and Irish Tavern sparked similar controversy with "Coyote Girls" shows, which featured dancers in bras and G-strings gyrating against poles in the bar.
Apparently local officials found the difference between swimsuit tops and bra's to be extreme - the Liquor Control Commission later revoked its liquor license and it closed.
Oakland County communities have used zoning laws to restrict adult entertainment.
Rochester Hills passed an ordinance that restricted where adult entertainment facilities could operate. Bloomfield Township effectively banned adult entertainment by requiring all applications to receive approval from police.
However, it seems that Oakland County maintains it's topless-free status with the help of local authorities who are against the concept of adult entertainment in their neighborhoods.
"I fought long and hard to rid the county of topless bars and X-rated movies, not because I was a prude but because it's a quality-of-life issue," County Executive L. Brooks Patterson said.
As prosecutor in the late 1970s and 1980s, Patterson cracked down on such establishments. Police arrested nude dancers and confiscated pornographic films. Prosecutors charged them with obscenity, being disorderly persons and nuisances.
"I'd love to have one in Oakland County. But it would take too much money to fight Oakland," John L. Hamilton of Northville, who operates four topless clubs in Wayne County.
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