SOUTH SALT LAKE -- A ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court last week means nude dancers in Utah and across the nation no longer can seek shelter behind the First Amendment and may be required to cover some body parts in the near future.
The March 29 Supreme Court decision affirmed that cities have the power to restrict and even ban nude dancing, a stark contrast to the long-standing view that nude dancing was protected as a form of free expression under the First Amendment.Nowhere in Utah is the impact of the high court's 6-3 decision expected to be greater than South Salt Lake.
Although host to seven nude establishments -- three of them featuring full nudity -- South Salt Lake's politicians have waited patiently for the chance to tighten the laws governing adult clubs. Now that the legal pendulum has shifted in their favor, the city is moving quickly to revamp those laws.
South Salt Lake City Attorney Craig Hall said Monday he has been instructed by city officials to regulate the so-called sexually oriented businesses "in as strict a fashion as the law will reasonably allow."
While proposals for changing the city's adult clubs ordinance have not been completed, Hall said the Supreme Court's decision grants broad latitude to cities like South Salt Lake.
"We can regulate nudity and ban it if that's what the elected officials decide," he said.
At the very least, nude dancers in South Salt Lake and other areas could be required to wear G-strings and pasties. Such partial clothing is currently only mandated at establishments where alcohol is served.
In evaluating an adult club ordinance for Erie, Pa., the Supreme Court held that cities can ban nude dancing if it is linked to higher crime rates, prostitution or drug use in a community. Some fear that argument -- even when crime statistics don't support it -- will be advanced by people who disagree with adult clubs on moral grounds, as an excuse to prohibit them.
But what some find offensive is how others make their living. At Dancer's Pool, a bar located on 3300 South in South Salt Lake, the new part-owner recently applied for a license to allow nude dancing at her club.
"I don't care what people do as long as you give them a choice," said the owner, who declined to give her name. "Because they're going to do it anyway."
Just next door at the GoldBar Saloon, 15 or so male patrons played pool and watched dancers in a smoky bar at around 7 p.m. Monday. Neither the club's owner nor a manager was available for comment.
Bars like Dancer's Pool, however, appear hard-pressed to obtain nude dancing licenses in South Salt Lake at this time because the largely working-class city of 18,000 people already has three more adult clubs than its self-imposed limit, according to Hall.
The City Council could decide as early as April 19 whether the days of full-fledged nudity in South Salt Lake are numbered, Hall said.