April 9, 2008

Texas Pole Tax Unconstitutional

No, no, not a “poll tax,” but a “pole tax.”

At first, we thought the Great State of Texas was intending to levy a fee on Polish people, and that would indeed be unconstitutional. And then we thought, well, maybe this is an animal story, and it had something to do with polecats.

But, no: The fee in question was a proposed pole tax — essentially an extra five-dollar cover charge for strip-club patrons to be handed over to the state to fund healthcare and sexual-assault prevention programs.

Which all makes for noble intentions, but doesn’t make a whole lot of sense: When men go to strip clubs (face it, folks, there just aren’t a lot of strip clubs catering to female customers), they’re sating some arcane compulsion to buy overpriced, watered-down liquor while throwing even more money at naked women in a relatively safe, secure environment. In other words, strip clubs keep drunken horny guys off the streets.

Judging by my one experience with a straight strip club (on a lark at age 18, I decided I wanted to see Carol Doda, before she was too old and too disabled by those gigantic, silicone-filled gazongas to descend into the Condor Club on her famous flying piano), guys who patronize strip clubs are too drunk (read: impotent) and too broke (there was a two-drink minimum, at $13.50 a pop, back in 1980) to be able to assault, sexually or otherwise, anybody.

Don’t laugh: There are brazillions of studies showing that porn consumption cuts down on sex crimes (you can read about some of them here, and here), so it would make sense that strip clubs serve the same function.

(Granted, there’s always the danger that these drunken horndogs will then get behind the wheel of a car and kill somebody on the way home, but drunk driving is a whole ‘nother issue; if somebody’s going to drive drunk, they’re going to drive drunk at some point, regardless of the circumstances.)

I’ll leave it to you, dear reader, to worry about whether strip clubs (or porn) contribute to the dehumanization of women as sex objects.

Anyway, the “pole tax,” which the state started collecting this past January, is kaput for now. Sez MSNBC:

A state district judge ruled Friday that clubs can’t collect the fee. …

Judge Scott Jenkins wrote that the fee, “while furthering laudable goals, violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and is therefore invalid.”

The Texas Entertainment Association Inc., which is a group of topless clubs, and Karpod Inc., the owner of an Amarillo club, sued Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and Comptroller Susan Combs over the fee.

Witnesses for the strip clubs testified at a hearing last year that the clubs would go out of business if they had to collect an additional $5-per-patron fee. …

Attorneys for the state have argued that the fee does not prohibit nude dancing, does not regulate what entertainers wear and does not regulate the businesses in other ways. The state can appeal the decision.

Posted by: Sapphocrat