Flashing Breasts A First Amendment Right?
Not So, Says Springs Prosecutor
POSTED: 11:36 am MDT May 20,
2009
UPDATED: 2:52 pm MDT May 20,
2009
DENVER -- A woman spontaneously flashing her breasts in a nightclub isn't expressive speech protected by the First Amendment.That's what a Colorado City Attorney's Office prosecutor said Wednesday.Attorney Scott Patlin talked to the Gazette newspaper about a lawsuit filed by the 13 Pure Nightclub & Bistro after the city's liquor and beer licensing board suspended its liquor license over an incident last Aug. 13.
Film crews from "Girls Gone Wild" videotaped several women exposing their breasts inside the Colorado Springs club. The cameras also recorded someone fondling the breasts of at least one woman.Patlin said city and state laws prohibit such behavior inside a licensed liquor establishment.The nightclub filed suit, arguing the city "improperly failed to follow applicable law and based its decision on the content of protected speech ... in violation of the First and Fourteen Amendments to the United States Constitution."Patlin told the Gazette that he disagreed with their take on the incident."Our argument is that that simply isn't the case. It's conduct the city is prohibiting, not the exchange of ideas," he said. "It is the public display of nudity and the fondling of another person's breasts in public that is illegal, not whatever ideas that they are claiming they were expressing by doing that."Police conducted an undercover operation in the nightclub the night of the videotaping, leading to 10 separate violations of the city's liquor laws against 13 Pure.In March, the city's liquor board suspended the nightclub's liquor license for 70 days, but held 60 days of that punishment in abeyance.Read more at the Gazette.com.
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