State’s High Court Sides With Brookhaven In Pink Pony Lawsuit
If the Pink Pony wants to remain a totally nude strip club that sells alcohol it will have to relocate. That’s based on a Georgia Supreme Court ruling Monday in favor of the city of Brookhaven. In the ruling, the court upheld a lower court decision dismissing the lawsuit. The strip club sued Brookhaven after the newly created city passed a law last year prohibiting completely naked dancing combined with alcohol.
The Pink Pony declined to comment on the ruling and would not let WABE speak with its customers, but one of its attorneys said the strip club will ask justices to reconsider the case.
At a nearby shopping plaza, Brookhaven businessman Aaron Glass said he disliked the ruling.
“Everybody knows when somebody participates in establishments like that there’s going to have to be alcohol involved, and that’s another way for those clubs to make money. In order for them to survive they have to have that alcohol to draw people in,” said Glass.
Glass thinks the city’s law could drive the Pink Pony out of business or force the club to move.
But Brookhaven Mayor J. Max Davis said the city is not trying to close the shut the Pink Pony down.
He said the strip club can continue to sell alcohol if they change to partially nude dancing.
“Our ordinance wasn’t targeted any one business. It was targeted at making sure that we didn’t have proliferation of businesses that would drive down property values and drive up problems.”
He said those problems include crime, prostitution and drug dealing.
But in court, Pink Pony attorneys argued the Brookhaven law violates free speech rights. Those representing the strip club also said a previous agreement the strip club with DeKalb County should stand.
Brookhaven passed the law less than a month after it incorporated. And as more and more new cities are created in the metro area, Amy Henderson with the Georgia Municipal Association says many are also considering land use questions.
“Those questions are: what types of zoning do we want? Where do we want businesses? What kind of businesses do we maybe want to encourage? It may not all be about adult entertainment type businesses, but it could be that we want to encourage more businesses over here and more residential over here.”
WABE legal analyst Page Pate said the Georgia Supreme Court has ruled in favor of local governments in several similar cases.
“There have been prior cases in Georgia that have gone before the state Supreme Court that basically say you don’t have a constitutional right to nude dancing and the distribution of alcohol. We can’t completely restrict nude dancing, and we can’t completely restrict the sale of alcohol, but when you put the two together, at least in the court’s mind, the effect on the community is bad enough that if a jurisdiction wants to enact an ordinance they can do it,” said Pate.
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