CITY HALL — A proposal to allow both alcohol sales and full nudity at strip clubs is going back to the changing room.
Ald. Emma Mitts (37th) said she originally had proposed simply changing city rules to allow strip clubs to serve alcohol.
Yet at some point Mitts' proposal was rewritten to feature language to explicitly allow "employees or entertainers, but not patrons, to engage in live acts" displaying "buttocks and/or female breasts, genitals, anus, perineum and pubic region."
"It was nudity all the time," Mitts said. She said she's "not exactly sure" how that language became a part of her proposal, but as a result she no longer backed it.
At Wednesday's City Council meeting, she used a parliamentary maneuver to derail it. That gave the Council a month to amend it, pass it as is or ditch it entirely.
Ald. Anthony Beale (9th) had endorsed Mitts' plan as a way to end BYOB policies at The Factory, 12054 S. Doty Ave., in the Riverdale neighborhood in his ward. Yet Beale will now have to find his own way to achieve those aims.
Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) two years ago proposed similar changes in the city's strip-club ordinance and also made similar claims his ordinance was hijacked and its wording changed.
Ald. Edward Burke (14th) said at the time the reforms were necessary to allow "a world-class city" to have "realistic kinds of adult entertainment venues."
Yet Waguespack charged that Mayor Rahm Emanuel's office had rewritten his ordinance unacceptably, and it too was withdrawn.
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