A Utah state judge said the city of Provo may enforce a new zoning ordinance that requires exotic dancers to wear nothing less than a bikini and requires all sexually oriented businesses to operate in an industrial area of town.\n A review hearing has been scheduled for June 30 and a trial, if needed, will take place in January.\n Judge Howard H. Maetini's ruling came in a lawsuit filed by LeMar's Nightclub, which argued that the zoning ordinance, passed last December, violated free expression rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. The ruling was made to deny a request for a preliminary injunction to stop enforcement of the law and not on the law itself.\n The ordinance not only outlaws nude dancing, it requires dancers to wear more than pasties and a G-string. \n Following the judge's ruling, LeMar's ended its nightly dance feature and laid off 10 employees, all of them dancers and security guards.\n Lawyers for the city said the law was not motivated by a dislike of nude dancing but, rather, to curtail secondary effects related to the activity. The lawyers said nude dancing led to increased crime, decreased property values and a lower quality of life.\n Judge Maetini said LeMar's Nightclub failed to make a case for its assertion that the ordinance was a denial of First Amendment rights. "The court refuses to guess at the reasons why plaintiff thinks the bikini standard is unconstitutional," he said.\n W. Andrew McCullough, LeMar's lawyer, said the city law was overly broad and that the judge simply took the city's word that nude dancing businesses were bad for the area.
All models were at least 18 years old at the time of their performance. 18 U.S.C. 2257 Record-Keeping Requirements Compliance Statement.
