Gay event promoter Mark Lee said the D.C. City Council took steps this week toward
addressing some of the concerns of local business owners. (Photo by Luis Gomez)
La Clinica blames staffing, facility hurdles for trans program delays
Official says non-commercial ‘cruising’ not prosecuted
advertisement
advertisement
|
LOU CHIBBARO JR.
Friday, December 05, 2003
The D.C. Council repealed a regulation on Dec. 2 that gave the city’s Alcoholic
Beverage Control Administration authority to ban sexually oriented performances
and acts in bars and nightclubs.
Council members supporting the repeal said the city’s liquor law has
no provision on which to base the regulation and that it duplicates enforcement
authority against public sex acts already held by the police.
The Council passed the repeal by voice vote as part of its approval of P.R.
15538, the Revised Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Approval Resolution of 2003.
The resolution ratifies a set of liquor related regulations proposed by ABRA
and revised by the Council’s Committee on Consumer and Regulatory Affairs.
The resolution, which required only one “reading” or vote by the
Council, took effect immediately.
Other regulations included in the resolution approved by the Council Tuesday
ease restrictions that gay and straight bar and nightclub owners have said
prevented them from providing amenities such as outdoor dining, dancing, and
live entertainment.
“There is a growing consensus in the city that there are major problems
with the regulatory process,” said Mark Lee, owner of Atlas Events, an
event promotion company that caters to the gay community.
Lee said the regulation repealed by the Council this week is one of a number
of regulations and provisions of the city’s liquor law that a coalition
of nightlife advocates, including gay club owners, is seeking to address.
The D.C. Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance lobbied the Council to repeal
the regulation pertaining to sexually oriented acts and performances, saying
investigators with the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board used the regulation
to unfairly target clubs and events catering to leather and S&M groups.
Some of those groups sponsor shows that include simulated sex acts involving
whips and chains that ABC investigators claimed violated the regulation’s
ban on “flagellation,” GLAA members said.
Other critics called the regulation a holdover from a past era when liquor
regulators sought to regulate the behavior of consenting adults who engaged
in such activities as touching while dancing together at a club or restaurant.
The regulation, known as Sec. 905, states that “no holder of an alcoholic
beverage license shall require or permit any entertainer, employee, customer,
or other person to do any of the following on its premises: (a) Perform or
simulate the performance of acts of oral, anal, or vagina sexual intercourse,
masturbation flagellation, or bestiality; or (b) fondle the breasts, buttocks,
anus, or genitals of any other person.”
In the past, the ABC Board fined and suspended the liquor licenses of both
gay and straight nightclubs that feature nude dance performances after ABC
inspectors alleged that customers were fondling or improperly touching the
dancers. Owners of the clubs said the customers’ actions violated club
policies prohibiting customers from improperly touching dancers.
Bob Summersgill, the GLAA member who coordinated the group’s lobbying
against the regulation, called the regulation overly broad and intrusive.
He noted that it gave liquor board officials powers to arrest adult hotel guests,
including married couples, who engage in consenting sex acts in their rooms
at hotels that have a license to sell liquor.
Summersgill noted that most hotels have a liquor license. The regulation also
made it illegal for a theater that sells liquor at concession stands, including
the Kennedy Center, to provide performances in which actors simulate sexual
acts.
The regulation “was used solely for harassment of club owners who allowed
entertainment in their establishments,” Summersgill said. “In particular,
clubs such as the Eagle were harassed by the ABC Board for allowing leather
contests,” he said. “Leather contests usually have a fantasy segment.
Many of the fantasies involved actual or simulated flagellation, which was
expressly prohibited” by the regulation, Summersgill said.
David Grasso, an aid to Council member Sharon Ambrose (D-Ward 6), who supported
efforts to repeal the regulation, said the repeal enjoyed broad support among
both business and civic groups that monitor liquor law issues.
“We felt existing law already bars things like prostitution,” said
Grass, who noted that the regulations were most likely aimed at prostitution.
Peter LaValle, a spokesperson for the D.C. Corporation Counsel’s office,
which prosecutes misdemeanor crimes in the District, said customers or employees
could be subject to arrest under the city’s “lewd, indecent or
obscene acts” law if they engage in certain sex acts in bars and nightclubs.
A conviction under the act could lead to a fine of up to $300 or a jail term
of up to 90 days, he said.
The Council made these additional changes to the regulations it approved this
week:
- It repealed a rule allowing residents living within a 600-foot radius
of new bars and nightclubs applying for a liquor license for the first time
to vote to deny the license in a referendum. Nightlife advocates say the
referendums gave an unfair advantage to a few critics who oppose any nightlife
venues in
their neighborhood.
- It removed from the regulation package for further study
a proposal for determining whether restaurants should be allowed to offer
entertainment
or whether they should be restricted in the amount of liquor they can serve
in proportion to the amount of food served.
|
