Baby Dolls Topless Saloons, Inc. v. City of Dallas

114 F. Supp. 2d 531, 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17058, 2000 WL 1345907
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Texas
DecidedMay 2, 2000
Docket3:97-cv-01331
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 114 F. Supp. 2d 531 (Baby Dolls Topless Saloons, Inc. v. City of Dallas) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Baby Dolls Topless Saloons, Inc. v. City of Dallas, 114 F. Supp. 2d 531, 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17058, 2000 WL 1345907 (N.D. Tex. 2000).

Opinion

FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

BUCHMEYER, Chief Judge.

Plaintiff Baby Dolls Topless Saloons, Inc. d/b/a Baby Dolls Saloon-East and In- *534 tervenors MD II Entertainment, Inc. d/b/a The Fare West; D. Burch, Inc. d/b/a Baby Dolls Topless Saloon; Mainstage, Inc. d/b/a P.T.’s Gentlemen’s Club; Club Hospitality, Inc. D/b/a Club Lipstick; Frank Smith d/b/a Sheer D’Lite; OGC Restaurants, L.L.C. d/b/a Obsessions; Santa Fe Cabaret, L.L.C. d/b/a Santa Fe Cabaret; Case and Point, Inc. d/b/a The Bare Facts; Dimitri Papathansiou d/b/a Doll’s House; Tom K. Lazanas d/b/a Baby G’s and d/b/a Faces; and VJAC Investments, Inc. d/b/a Venus brought this action against Defendant City of Dallas (“the City”) alleging that Dallas City Code Chapter 41A, as amended by City Ordinance No. 23137 (“the Ordinance”), violates their rights protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, and seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. The Court partially granted injunctive relief for Intervenors on March 2, 1998. The injunction enjoined Defendant from enforcing Chapter 41A, as amended by the Ordinance, against Intervenors through the amended definition of “specified anatomical areas” in §§ 41A-2(3), (4), (6), and (7). The Court also enjoined Defendant from enforcing the amended amortization requirements of §§ 41A-13(f)-(i) against certain Intervenors. The Court denied all other requests for injunctive relief.

The Court tried this action without a jury on September 8-10, 14, and 15, 1998. Pursuant to Rule 52(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Court makes its findings of fact and conclusions of law as follows:

I.FINDINGS OF FACT

A. Preliminary Findings

1. Plaintiff and Intervenors operate nightclubs that present live entertainment consisting of female striptease and topless dancing at various locations in the City of Dallas, Texas.

2. The City is a home-rule city within Dallas County, Texas.

3. In 1986, the City enacted Chapter 41A of the Dallas City Code as a comprehensive zoning and licensing regulation for “sexually oriented businesses.” The purpose of Chapter 41A was “to regulate sexually oriented businesses to promote the health, safety, morals, and general welfare of the citizens of the city, and to establish reasonable and uniform regulations to prevent the continued concentration of sexually oriented businesses within the city.” DALLAS CITY CODE § 41A-1. The City enacted Chapter 41A after studying the efforts of other cities in regulating such businesses. Chapter 41A originally defined “sexually oriented business” as follows:

SEXUALLY ORIENTED BUSINESS means an adult arcade, adult bookstore or adult video store, adult cabaret, adult motel, adult motion picture theater, adult theater, escort agency, nude model studio, or sexual encounter center.

Ch. 41A-2(17) (1986). An “adult cabaret” was defined as

ADULT CABARET means a nightclub, bar, restaurant, or similar commercial establishment which regularly features:
(a) persons who appear in a state of nudity; or
(b) live performances which are characterized by the exposure of “specified anatomical areas” or by “specified sexual activities”; or
(c) films, motion pictures, video cassettes, slides, or other photographic reproductions which are characterized by the depiction or description of “specified sexual activities” or “specified anatomical areas.”

Id. § 41A-2(3) (emphasis added). “Specified anatomical areas” was defined as

SPECIFIED ANATOMICAL AREAS means human genitals in a state of sexual arousal.

Id. § 41A-2(18).- “Nudity or a state of nudity” was defined as

NUDITY or a STATE OF NUDITY means the appearance of a bare buttock, anus, male genitals, female genitals, or female breast.

*535 Id. § 41A-2(13). Also among the regulations was a requirement that a sexually-oriented business be at least 1,000 feet from another sexually oriented business, a church, a school, a residential area, or park. See id. § 41A-13. The above definitions and the location restrictions were held to be constitutional by this Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. See Dumas v. City of Dallas, 648 F.Supp. 1061 (N.D.Tex.1986) (Buchmeyer, J.), aff'd sub nom. FW/PBS, Inc. v. City of Dallas, 837 F.2d 1298 (5th Cir.1988), aff'd in part, rev’d in part on other grounds, 493 U.S. 215, 110 S.Ct. 596, 107 L.Ed.2d 603 (1990).

4. In light of these decisions, a sexually oriented business that sought to continue offering female striptease and topless dancing could either relocate to a site that complied with Chapter 41A and be licensed as a sexually oriented business, or change their dancers’ attire to “simulate” nudity, and be licensed as a “dance hall” under Dallas City Code Chapter 14 — which did not, and wasn’t designed to, regulate sexually oriented businesses' — and remain at their existing locations. This was possible because the definition of nudity in Chapter 41A did not include “simulated” nudity. See supra Findings of Fact ¶ 3 [hereinafter FOF], Most of Intervenors’ businesses chose to change their dancers’ attire by requiring them to simulate nudity by wearing flesh-colored pasties over their areolae and bikini bottoms. This allowed Interve-nors’ businesses to avoid being regulated as a sexually oriented business under Chapter 41A, to obtain theater or dance hall licenses pursuant to Chapter 14, and to operate at their existing locations.

5. On January 22, 1992, the City enacted Ordinance No. 21184 amending Chapter 14 to create a new classification of dance halls, “Class D Dance Halls.” The City enacted Ordinance No. 21184 because In-tervenors’ businesses had found a way to circumvent the intent of Chapter 41A and to avoid its location restrictions by featuring semi- or simulated nudity. See Ints. Ex. 290 at 4. By creating Class D Dance Halls, the City sought to prevent Interve-nors’ businesses from operating as a theater or dance hall and to subject them to location restrictions similar to those imposed by Chapter 41A. See id. Ordinance No. 21184 contained the following relevant definitions:

(5) CLASS D DANCE HALL means any place:
(A) where dancing is permitted one day a week or more by a person in a state of semi-nudity or simulated nudity;
(14) SEMI-NUDITY means a state of dress in which clothing covers no more than the genitals, pubic region, buttocks, and areolae of the female breast, as well as parts of the body covered by supporting straps or devices.

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114 F. Supp. 2d 531, 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17058, 2000 WL 1345907, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/baby-dolls-topless-saloons-inc-v-city-of-dallas-txnd-2000.