ABC BOARD: DANCERS MUST BEGIN A COVER-UP

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, January 19, 1993                   TAG: 9301190198
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY  
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NORFOLK                                LENGTH: Medium
ABC BOARD: DANCERS MUST BEGIN A COVER-UP
Tommy Arney serves mixed drinks and has scantily clad women dance at his go-go bar. But the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board says they can't be too scantily clad if Arney wants to keep his liquor license.
He has challenged that, saying the ABC code is behind the times.
"People have made a lot of goofy laws and nobody has ever challenged them to change them," Arney said. "I wanted to know why I couldn't have mixed beverages in my go-go bar."
Arney, 36, got his liquor license in December 1991. ABC agents, he said, came in "to try to tell me what the girls could wear and what they couldn't wear. What they told me is that there was a law that said the girls' stomachs had to be covered. A lot of girls had to get special costumes made."
In June 1992, agents wrote him up, saying Arney had broken a 1968 state law that requires dancers to not "uncommonly expose" their bodies.
"It's kind of rare that this sort of establishment with a mixed-beverage license actually tries to provide this sort of entertainment," said William Gee, a spokesman for the ABC board. "That's not how you change the law. That's how you get in trouble."
The state fined the Body Shop $750; the establishment lost its appeal to the full ABC board in December.
Kent Willis, director of the Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the ACLU believes the First Amendment protects nearly every form of expression except in cases of obscenity or clear and present danger.
"Outside of that, people should be able to express themselves as they wish whether there is alcohol in the room," Willis said. "On the other hand, the courts have given the state the right to regulate alcohol - but the problem is how far."
Dancers at the Body Shop aren't obscene, Willis said. "If you're dancing to music, you're doing art of some sort."
Michael Oglesby, chief hearing officer for the ABC, said when the General Assembly passed the mixed-beverage law in 1968, it wanted mixed drinks served at "higher-class" restaurants.
"There's been some criticism, because mixed-beverage establishments are held to higher standards - especially in dress - than wine-and-beer places," he said.
Gee said even though an establishment calls itself a go-go bar, it is still a restaurant under the law.
"In a family-type restaurant, if you want to take your family in for food, you can. You want to take your 10-year-old into a restaurant but you don't want to see people jumping around."
Why doesn't Arney settle for a wine-and-beer license?
"Most customers prefer to drink mixed drinks. The clientele is better," he said. "We have businessmen who come in and want a bourbon and Coke."
Willis said the Virginia law is antiquated.
"Much of what happens is how active the ABC is going to be" in enforcing the law, he said. "If the ABC is indeed going on the warpath to close down places that show too much thigh, they'll open these regulations to review."

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB