State Fights for Restricting Sexually Oriented Businesses

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State Fights for Restricting Sexually Oriented Businesses

Special Report - October 27, 2006
The State of North Carolina is fighting in federal court to defend a law passed in 2003 that restricts conduct in sexually oriented businesses that serve alcohol. According to the Associated Press, North Carolina Solicitor General Christopher Browning appeared before a three-judge panel of the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday, October 24 requesting that the court reverse an opinion by a federal district court that found the law unconstitutional. The North Carolina Family Policy Council worked with the N.C. Attorney General’s office, the N.C. Department of Crime Control and Public Safety, and the State Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission to get the law passed in the 2003 Legislative Session.

This is the latest action in a five-year battle over conduct in “strip-joints” located in the Tar Heel State. In 2001, Christie’s Cabaret sued to overturn a state law that banned sexually explicit conduct at sexually oriented businesses. The Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the law in an August 2002 opinion, saying that the law violated the plaintiff’s First Amendment rights to free expression. The North Carolina General Assembly responded in 2003 by passing a revised version of the law, prohibiting simulated sex acts and other obscene conduct in establishments that are licensed to serve alcohol. Christie’s Cabaret sued again, and the same U.S. District Court Judge that sided with the strip club in 2002, Judge N. Carlton Tilley, found in favor of Christie’s Cabaret in October 2005.

On Tuesday, Solicitor General Browning argued that the law applies only to businesses with alcohol permits, and because of the “volatile combination of alcohol and erotica,” the law is not overbroad or unconstitutional. The outcome of the case now lies in the hands of the federal appeals court.

North Carolina Family Policy Council director of government relations John Rustin commented, “We fought hard in 2003 to reinstate this law, which allows Alcohol Law Enforcement (ALE) the ability to prohibit the most extreme forms of sexual conduct in strip clubs in our state. These forms of sexual conduct constitute illegal obscenity, not constitutionally protected speech. It would be unconscionable to recognize this vile conduct as legal.”