Seattle city officials on Tuesday agreed to pay $500,000 settlement to a man who claimed the city refused to let him open a strip club.
The deal comes after Bob Davis sued the city in February 2005 after the city repeatedly denied him a permit to open a strip club, citing a long-standing moratorium on licenses for such adult businesses, the Seattle Times reported. The city had been renewing the moratorium each spring since 1988.
But in September 2005, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that the city’s moratorium was illegal and a violation of the First Amendment or right to free speech.
Davis said he would use the settlement money to open a new strip club in the city and to pay his estimated $100,000 in legal fees. Davis has claimed he may have lost as much as $3 million in potential income in the interim.
Under the court judgment, strip clubs are allowed to open in the city's downtown and commercial zones.
