By Kayode Crown
A fast-growing northern Alabama county on Wednesday denied the application for restaurant alcohol licenses for two businesses because officials say they allow topless and bottomless dancing, against the provision of the Alcohol Beverage Control statute.
The two businesses are Rocket City Show Girls, which does business as The Pony Too, outside the city limits of Madison, and The Cheetah Club LLC, which operates as Rocket City Showgirls, outside the city limits of Huntsville.
The Madison County Commission unanimously denied the applications after listening to comments from county officials who argued against the approval.
Before the vote, county administrator Kevin Jones said the clubs violated portions of the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board administrative code.
“Under the ABC administration code 20-X-6-.11, it states that no ABC license shall permit bottomless, topless dancing wherein the portion of the female breast is exposed below the nipple,” Jones told the board.
“During this application process, we found that this has been violated. I’ve met with the sheriff as recently as this past weekend. The dancers were not wearing bottoms or tops in certain circumstances.”
He said the code only allows restaurant retail licenses for locations used principally to prepare and serve meals.
“There is no evidence presented that these locations are principally preparing or serving food,” Jones said.
Eric Artrip, an attorney for the clubs, told AL.com that he believes that the county commissioners denied the application because they did not like a part of their business. He said his clients comply with the law regarding dancers’ covering.
“We are aware of many liquor licenses that have been granted in Madison County and it appears that the only difference between those businesses and the businesses that were denied a license today is that the Madison County Commission just doesn’t like one aspect of our business,” he said.
“This is clearly in violation of First Amendment protections that are in place to prevent just this kind of selective enforcement of laws so that we are basically left up to the whims of the elected officials and what they would like, as opposed to what the law requires.”
The county administrator said that locations have never been advertised as restaurants.
“These applicants are not new restaurants,” Jones, the county administrator, told the commission today. “They are businesses with a long history operating in Madison County, which is known to have operated as adult entertainment venues, not restaurants.”
The county asked for the menu served at the locations.
“Even though all indications show that they are operating strip clubs, we gave them the opportunity to provide information that would demonstrate that they were operating as a restaurant or they could do that in the future,” the county administrator said. “The information that they provided did not appear credible, and they refused to provide information that we requested.
“We have documented their social media posts, signage, and advertisements. All indicate that they are operating as an adult entertainment business. Their social media posts were found to have nude women. They are not advertising as a restaurant.”
Commissioner Phil Vandiver told AL.com that the venues needed to cross the required legal bar.
“When the sheriff said there was nudity in dancing, our attorney said that didn’t fit the legal description of what a restaurant would be and what we could do there, and so I think that from a legal standpoint, that’s where I really looked at it first,” he said.
“Then you have the concern for the safety of the people, to make sure that it’s something that’s done right and something that’d be beneficial to the community, and I didn’t think any of those things would really be beneficial to the community.”
Deputy Chief Stacy Bates of the Madison County Sheriff’s department told the county commission that officers responded to 48 calls for service from the two locations in the last year.
Bates and Sheriff Kevin H. Turner said that granting the liquor license could lead to more incidents at the two locations.
“And the notable part for me in those things is, it’s a laundry list of what types of calls they are,” Bates told the commission. “They could be things like some overdoses that we’ve had to respond to, some assault victims that we’ve had to respond to.”
He said sheriffs were at the two facilities this weekend investigating drug cases.
“As recently as this weekend, they were in both of these establishments and witnessed nudity first hand, witnessed some of the things that come out that have been deemed a violation of some of the ABC laws,” Bates said.
Bates said there is a traffic risk of people who have been drinking alcohol going on the road and coming from those locations in the early morning hours.
Turner said that what takes place at the clubs does not conform to the requirement for granting licenses.
“In our investigation, these VIP rooms, you know, they are not abiding by the laws. As of this weekend, they didn’t have any clothes on them,” the sheriff said.
