NEWPORT BEACH : Law Would Regulate Topless Dancing Bar

In an attempt to regulate what could be the city’s first topless and nude dancing bar, the City Council on Monday night passed an emergency ordinance designed to keep patrons at a certain distance from the dancers.

The council voted 6-0 to pass the ordinance, which requires live entertainment establishments, including adult entertainment, to ensure that their performers are separated at least six feet from patrons. The ordinance also required a floor-to-ceiling glass barrier between dancers and patrons who are closer than six feet.

The ordinance would regulate what could be the city’s first topless and nude dancing bar, to be named Mermaids, at 4248 Martingale Way near John Wayne Airport.

Original Mermaids’ designs called for, among other stages for topless dancers, a “viewing room” where a nude dancer would perform behind a three-foot-high plexiglass barrier for a single patron. For now, said Mermaids’ attorney Ronald Talmo, the bar will apply for a permit under the amended city code and will comply with the emergency ordinance.

“But, we’ll probably challenge” the ordinance’s legality at a later date, Talmo said. Nude or topless dancing is protected under the First Amendment, and Talmo said to curtail the distance between dancers and patrons would violate free expression.

Monday night’s vote is yet another obstacle thrown in Mermaids’ way, Talmo said. The city Planning Commission last week denied the bar a permit, saying the business would generate parking and traffic problems. Talmo said he will appeal the commissioners’ decision at the City Council meeting on Feb. 14.