State’s Highest Court Rules Town Can’t Ban Booze At Strip Clubs

Glasses of light and dark beer on a pub background via Shutterstock

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that it’s OK for you to drink at a strip club in Mendon.

The court handed down a ruling on Wednesday that declared Mendon’s ban on the sale of liquor at strip clubs as unconstitutional and too broadly worded.  Mendon’s ban on liquor sales at adult entertainment venues stifled the entrepreneurial efforts of Showtime Entertainment, a company that looked to open a strip club there.

The justices agreed unanimously that the Mendon’s arguments for banning alcohol sales at adult entertainment venues as a way to reduce crime were valid but they went too far in terms of limiting “expression.”

“Banning all manner of expression at establishments licensed to serve alcohol on the basis that the expression features nude dancing is not the logical response to the determination that alcohol service 16 in physical proximity to adult businesses increases the incidence of crime,” wrote Justice Francis X. Spina.

The court argued that such a ban would limit not just adult entertainment establishments that serve alcohol but higher brow theatrical performances of plays like Hair or Equus.