Ruling on 'sex bars’

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33093, 7 December 1972, Page 17

Ruling on ' sex bars’

(N.Z. Press Assn.r—Copyright) WASHINGTON, Dec. 6. By, a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court in Washington has ruled that state authorities can close bars which feature nude dancers “and other Bacchanalian revelries.”

Giving the majority opinion, Justice William Rehnquist said that the First Amendment freedom did not extend beyond books and films to gross sexuality in public. Besides, the 21st Amendment, ending prohibition, gave the states broad control over the sale of liquor in bars and night-clubs. The Court’s ruling was given in response to a case from California where, officials said, “acts of sexual intercourse, masturbation, sodomy, bestiality, oral copulation, and flagellation” were being passed off as dancing and entertainment.

Agreeing with the state’s appeal, Justice Rehnquist said that prostitution, indecent exposure to young

girls, and rape flourished near California bars and nightclubs in which such live entertainment was featured.

The Court’s decision upholds 1970 regulations authorising a State Department of Alcoholic, Beverage Control to suspend or revoke a liquor licence when its officials conclude that there is conduct contrary to public welfare or morals.

The regulation had been declared unconstitutional in April, 1971, by a Federal Court in Los Angeles empanelled to consider an action brought by a group of bar-owners. That ruling said that the state could regulate films and nude entertainment only if it proved, at a trial, that the exhibitions were obscene.

The Supreme Court ruling, which is considered certain to wipe out a burgeoning sex-in-bars industry based mainly on the east and west coasts, apparently signals a new, sterner attitude by the Court towards obscenity. It has been under increasing criticism from state and municipal authorities for what they consider growing permissiveness on obscenity.