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Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Catholic schools: the new place for action in Seattle

For the past seventeen years, the Seattle city council has been struggling with that age-old question: might there be too many half-naked women in G-strings humping poles for dollar bills in our city? On the one hand, there's that whole annoying "freedom" thing that supposedly prevents the council from pestering the scantily clad dollar dancers. On the other hand, sanctimonious community "leaders" like to preach about the evils of the local sex industry (they mostly prefer to get their porn by mail order). It's a dilemma for sure, and Seattle's city council just couldn't decide: how many strip clubs are too many?

Unfortunately, no one ever bothered to tell the city council that it didn't have to decide. The truth is that for some residents of Seattle, one strip club is too many. For others, there can never be enough. These differing opinions can be easily reconciled: it's called the free market, and the city council doesn't have to do anything to make it work. (Indeed, to make it work the council mustn't do a thing!) If more strip clubs open than the community is willing to support, then some will go out of business. If there aren't enough to meet demand, then more will open. Voila!

But since the idea of capitalism apparently never made it all the way up to Seattle, the council spent the past seventeen years mulling-over the question of how many strip clubs are enough--all the while refusing to allow business owners to open new clubs while council members were busy contemplating the issue (which likely involved some "field research"). That is, until a judge recently ruled that the council's moratorium on new clubs was unconstitutional and the ban on new clubs was lifted.

Distraught that its meddling had been undone, the council immediately looked for new ways that the already drizzly Seattle could put a wet blanket on fun. It quickly found one: Disney-fy the clubs. On Monday, the Seattle city council passed a new "code of conduct" for strip clubs. This "progressive" city's new regulations require that dancers remain four feet from customers at all times (no touching) and that tips go into tip jars instead of G-strings. How racy. Obviously, lap dances are prohibited, as are private rooms at clubs. For kicks, the council also threw in a rule requiring clubs to maintain "at least parking garage lighting," whatever that means.

And so, the city of Seattle has made going to a strip club like going to a student dance at a Catholic junior high school. Except at dances you can usually touch 15-year-old schoolgirls from only three feet away, and there are no regulations on the lighting and there are plenty of dark corners. Come to think of it...when's the next dance at St. Catherine's of Siena? I think I might have some business in Seattle.

Slug posted by Carter Laren @ 09:50