Teh One Who Knocks
12-20-2019, 11:07 AM
By JOHN BYRNE - CHICAGO TRIBUNE
https://i.imgur.com/CfQUubm.jpg
Women could soon be allowed to bare more flesh in Chicago strip clubs that sell liquor in a loosening of the city’s nudity rules following a settlement of a federal lawsuit brought by a transgender woman.
Bea Sullivan-Knoff filed the federal lawsuit in 2016 because she said it was discriminatory that she couldn’t appear topless without “pasties” covering her nipples as part of her performance art pieces.
Sullivan-Knoff on Thursday said Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration had agreed to settle the suit by removing all references to gender from the statutes governing how much flesh can be shown in various Chicago establishments.
“I am grateful that women and trans, nonbinary and intersex folks now have the option to express their bodies more freely in this city,” Sullivan-Knoff said at a City Hall news conference.
Sullivan-Knoff’s attorney, Brendan Shiller, said the settlement will also ease rules that currently require women to affix “pasties” if the establishment in which they are performing sells liquor.
“That is one of the side effects, yes,” Shiller said. “It no longer makes a gender distinction, and that was the city’s choice in terms of when we negotiated, how they would resolve this.”
Shiller had represented the strip club VIP’s, A Gentlemen’s Club. The Near Northwest Side club and its owner, Perry Mandera, fought a long battle to try to get the city to let strippers there expose more skin.
But Shiller said he stopped representing VIP’s before Sullivan-Knoff filed her suit. This was not a backdoor attempt to get the strip club rules eased, Shiller said Thursday, simply an incidental impact of the settlement.
The settlement language will be introduced to the City Council in January, Shiller said.
The city Law Department released a statement Thursday confirming the settlement would “remove a prohibition on displaying of female breasts at (establishments in the city that hold liquor licenses), as well as remove gendered language from that provision.”
“Pending legislative approval of these changes, Chicago’s liquor licensing ordinance will align with many other large U.S cities," the statement reads in part.
https://i.imgur.com/CfQUubm.jpg
Women could soon be allowed to bare more flesh in Chicago strip clubs that sell liquor in a loosening of the city’s nudity rules following a settlement of a federal lawsuit brought by a transgender woman.
Bea Sullivan-Knoff filed the federal lawsuit in 2016 because she said it was discriminatory that she couldn’t appear topless without “pasties” covering her nipples as part of her performance art pieces.
Sullivan-Knoff on Thursday said Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration had agreed to settle the suit by removing all references to gender from the statutes governing how much flesh can be shown in various Chicago establishments.
“I am grateful that women and trans, nonbinary and intersex folks now have the option to express their bodies more freely in this city,” Sullivan-Knoff said at a City Hall news conference.
Sullivan-Knoff’s attorney, Brendan Shiller, said the settlement will also ease rules that currently require women to affix “pasties” if the establishment in which they are performing sells liquor.
“That is one of the side effects, yes,” Shiller said. “It no longer makes a gender distinction, and that was the city’s choice in terms of when we negotiated, how they would resolve this.”
Shiller had represented the strip club VIP’s, A Gentlemen’s Club. The Near Northwest Side club and its owner, Perry Mandera, fought a long battle to try to get the city to let strippers there expose more skin.
But Shiller said he stopped representing VIP’s before Sullivan-Knoff filed her suit. This was not a backdoor attempt to get the strip club rules eased, Shiller said Thursday, simply an incidental impact of the settlement.
The settlement language will be introduced to the City Council in January, Shiller said.
The city Law Department released a statement Thursday confirming the settlement would “remove a prohibition on displaying of female breasts at (establishments in the city that hold liquor licenses), as well as remove gendered language from that provision.”
“Pending legislative approval of these changes, Chicago’s liquor licensing ordinance will align with many other large U.S cities," the statement reads in part.