Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 22, 1990 TAG: 9003221919
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: By PAUL DELLINGER SOUTHWEST BUREAU
DATELINE: GALAX LENGTH: Medium
The performers stripped down to their briefs and Bartlett, the restaurant's general manager at the time, said two women demanded their money back because "they didn't take enough off."
But there was one other complaint, from a state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board officer who charged Bartlett with allowing a striptease act, near-nudity and lewd conduct on the premises of an establishment licensed to serve mixed drinks.
General District Judge George B. Cooley ruled out the lewd conduct - "I admit I don't particularly like it but I've seen worse on TV than is demonstrated here," he said - but convicted Bartlett on the other two charges and fined her $50 on each misdemeanor.
Defense attorney Joe J. Steffen said immediately that the convictions would be appealed.
ABC Officer R.J. Love said he had received a call from Galax Police Chief Ray Melton two days before the Peter Adonis Traveling Male Dancers Show, billed in advertising leaflets as "Ladies' Night Out," was to perform at the restaurant.
Alice Ratliff, an ABC special agent based in Roanoke, paid $10 and was among the estimated 350 women customers who came to watch the five costumed male dancers.
"They each performed a striptease act. . . . They stripped down to what I would call an abbreviated bikini," she said. "It wasn't a full brief but it wasn't a G-string."
After stripping on stage, she said, they came down among the female patrons, kissed some and straddled others while making sexually-suggestive gyrations. "They would dance in front of the female patrons and generally the patrons would place a dollar bill in their briefs," she said.
One of the announcers would make lewd jokes, she said, "such things as comparing a man's equipment to a cucumber" and telling the women "you had to wear fireproof panty hose" to watch the show.
Ratliff said the ages of the customers ranged from 18 to an 82-year-old woman whose birthday was announced during the two-hour show. She took photographs, as did other customers, of the performers and showed them to the judge.
Prosecutor H. Douglas Turner asked if she was offended by the show. "Yes sir, some of the actions they did offend me," she said.
But they did not offend two customers called by the defense. "I saw a wonderful show," said Peggy Tolbert. "It was just the boys doing their job . . . putting on a show for the ladies."
Janet Fuller, an independent insurance agent, said she saw the performance from start to finish and was not offended by it. She said no alcohol was sold during the performance, and customers were told not to put dollar bills in the fronts of the dancers' briefs.
Steffen argued that the show could not have violated community standards. "They had 350 witnesses from this community from which to choose. They have not brought you one." He read a dictionary definition of striptease which described it as a performance, as in burlesque shows, in which a woman takes off her clothing slowly to the accompaniment of music, but he admitted the definition might already be obsolete.
Steffen said the ABC officials had no definition covering a striptease and their regulations were over-broad and therefore unconstitutional. He also challenged the constitutionality under the equal protection clause, noting that ABC regulations do not restrict such activities at establishments selling beer and wine but do where mixed drinks are sold. He said no rational basis for the difference exists.
Cooley said he would not get into the constitutional questions, but they could be settled "by a conviction here and then it'll go where it will."
Bartlett, who now is an overseer at the restaurant, was allowed to remain free with no bond.
She testified that she had gone so far as to send the ABC regulations to the performers and had gotten reassurances that they would comply with them.
by CNB