Judge makes critical ruling in Washington Bikini Barista case
The coffee stands can remain open until the case challenging City of Everett ordinances is settled.
Despite its status as a blue state, a special set of entrepreneurs have figured out how to market one of Washinton’s iconic products: Coffee.
Perhaps inspired by the “Hooters” model for chicken wings, scantily clad women serve up delicious caffeinated drinks and a smile. The successful business model, however, was drawing concerns that criminal elements were attracted to bikini baristas.
In August of this year, one Washington city passed new restrictions on how much skin employees at local bikini barista stands can bare.
The ordinance requires that owners of so-called “quick service” food and beverage businesses ensure employees cover “minimum body areas” while on duty. That includes the breasts, torso and the top three inches of legs below the buttocks, the ordinance states.
Under the ordinance, the city clerk’s office will provide picture diagrams to help illustrate the new requirements.
The move comes amid what city officials have called a proliferation of crimes occurring at local bikini barista stands. Previously, Everett officials used the city’s lewd-conduct ordinance to regulate conduct at the stands. But the ordinance provided “little deterrent” to bad behavior, the ordinance states.
A group of plucky baristas then sued the city, alleging violations of their rights to free expression and privacy.
The suit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, claims the city’s new dress code not only violates workers’ rights to free speech, but discriminates against women since it essentially deprives them of work exclusively for females.
Appropriately enough, Amelia Powell chose the “naughty cop” costume when she dressed for work Monday at Everett’s Hillbilly Hotties bikini barista stand.
“It’s called ‘criminally sexy,'” she laughed.
This week, a federal judge ruled in favor of the bikini baristas and is allowing them to continue to operate as the lawsuit continues through court.
Multiple news outlets report U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman on Monday extended an injunction that prevents the city from enforcing the two laws.
The injunction means the coffee stands can continue to operate while the lawsuit filed by seven baristas and the owner of a chain of coffee stands called “Hillbilly Hotties” makes its way through court.
Pechman wrote that the ordinances — one that attempted to impose a dress code and another that redefined lewd conduct in the city — are likely void for vagueness under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Pechman also found the dress code ordinance likely violated First Amendment protections of freedom of expression.
Truly, this is a hot legal development.
And don’t forget that coffee is good for your health…the science is settled.
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Comments
If skin = crime, then aren’t burkas in order?
yeah, the ultimate crime -except for pantsuit, who would be looking better and more natural – doncha think
It’s not the skin it’s the groping. Every single one of these places have girls who will let customers grope them for tips.
The skimpy outfits are advertising and let the hands get to the merchandise more easily.
And so? A woman can let a man grope her for money even if it is in the Walmart lingerie section. Why do I or anyone else care?
If a municipality wants to legalize prostitution it’s not my business, unless it’s my town. I don’t know about public disturbances or lewd displays. Not every town wants a Folsom street fair on every corner.
Consensual crimes are meant to target “out” groups. They are used as weapons to label and then destroy other people. The problem is that they will be twisted to be used against anyone. A good example is the people that ISIS were throwing off the top of buildings saying that they were homosexuals. The problem is they weren’t homosexuals at all they were amateur journalists that had the audacity to try to show the atrocities being committed by ISIS. Nice easy cover for ISIS to label them homosexuals and then with consent of the people in their “calphite” kill them. I don’t think this is the kind of thinking you want to get behind.
That is one of the most hyperbolic, overblown pieces of horse feathers I have read here. The reason they throw gays, or journalists or anyone off the roof is because they are Isis.
When we outlawed prostitution we didn’t suddenly sprout hookers from trees. This is what we are talking about prostitution. It is illegal in Washington state. I prefer to keep it that way.
Quit huffing about othering and such sjw bull. These girls are not others and neither are the johns. They’re lower middle class girls and horny middle-class dudes who want to grope some tight young thing on the way to work.
You want to live next to open prostitution work to make it legalin your state
FREEDOM!!!!
From what I have read there were several people arrested and charged concerning the exchange of money for sexual services. So basically there are already laws in place to handle that kind of behavior, correct? So why do you need more laws?
Beats the heck out of Starbucks and its bitter, over-rpiced swill.
how to market one of Washinton’s iconic products: Coffee.
Oh, so that’s what they’re selling.
Selling, yes. The other product is just a rental.
1) It is probably Starbucks behind it to suppress competition.
2) Expect the city [at the behest of Starbucks] to go crazy on the Bikini Baristas for every code violation that can be invented.
Subotai Bahadur
Nah, if the do-goooders really want to shut this down, pass a cap on the amount of electricity or heating fuel that a business can utilitze. If the inside of that little hut was the same temperature as outside, most normal people would put on clothes.
Normal people i.e. cowards would indeed. People that want to be free would bring in small propane heaters. When they say freedom has a price they really aren’t kidding.
Frigid temps might actually make those young ladies more interesting to look at, if you know what I mean.
Congressman Blake Farenthold….knows all about that!
This is the PNW (Pacific Northwest) where children are brought up to be inured to the weather. Kids around here go to school in the dark, when’s in the low-40s and raining, wearing shorts and T-shirt. A little chill inside a dry coffee shack will not dissuade young locals from wearing next to nothing.
I grew up around strippers and clubs. Every last one of those “hoes” was supporting a drunken, drugged biker. That’s just the way it is. There’s someone monetizing the situation. So, coffee? Yeah, right….
The sad truth is that as a young teenager, many attractive women were molested by a trusted family member of friend. A little tweaked to begin with, they seek to requite the love and trust of their family member (or father) by seeking out an abuser like that abusive male, with the fantasy of changing the abuser, and thus changing their life’s history.
Many of these women become exhibitionists, strippers and prostitutes, porn actresses, etc. to further their degradation and at the same time control men in the only way they can.
Quite a toxic recipe, huh? Never words, of course.
Feel sorry for strippers and hookers (and never patronize them) but to the extent they try and help themselves out of their way of life. Not easy, but then, no one likes a quitter.
Only harvey weinstein could have given that comment a thumbs down.
Hi harvey.
Baloney. Most teenage girls are not molested by anyone, stranger or family. And physical attractiveness has nothing to with the predator’s calculations. Your anecdotal psychological analysis of total strangers would make for a poignant movie on Lifetime.
I think that is probably more of poor phrasing, considering if you read what he wrote it is obvious he is referring to women who chose to become strippers, prostitutes, and/or seek out abusive relationships.
That is true.
Did you take note of that, 4Gwendolynn?
I know quite a few of those victims, helping many of them professionally.
Read about it:
http://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/advice/a6085/childhood-sexual-assault/
First, you failed to read the comment concerned women who venture into prostitution, porn, abusive relationships, etc.
Second, you should educate yourself on a matter so sensitive before you make such an incredibly uneducated claim:
Child Sexual Abuse Is a Widespread Problem:
82% of all victims under 18 are female.4
Females ages 16-19 are 4 times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault.
About 4 times more likely to develop symptoms of drug abuse
About 4 times more likely to experience PTSD as adults
About 3 times more likely to experience a major depressive episode as adults
Out of the yearly 63,000 sexual abuse cases substatiated, or found strong evidence, by Child Protective Services (CPS),6 the perpetrator was most often the parent:1
80% of perpetrators were a parent
6% were other relatives
5% were “other” (from siblings to strangers)
4% were unmarried partners of a parent
In 88% of the sexual abuse claims that CPS substantiates or finds supporting evidence of, the perpetrator is male. In 9% of cases they are female, and 3% are unknown.
Sources:
United States Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Children’s Bureau. Child Maltreatment Survey, 2012 (2013).
Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sex Offenses and Offenders (1997).
David Finkelhor, Anne Shattuck, Heather A. Turner, & Sherry L. Hamby, The Lifetime Prevalence of Child Sexual Abuse and Sexual Assault Assessed in Late Adolescence, 55 Journal of Adolescent Health 329, 329-333 (2014)
Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sexual Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement (2000).
H.M Zinzow, H.S. Resnick, J.L. McCauley, A.B. Amstadter, K.J. Ruggiero, & D.G. Kilpatrick, Prevalence and risk of psychiatric disorders as a function of variant rape histories: results from a national survey of women. Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 47(6), 893-902 (2012).
United States Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Children’s Bureau. Child Maltreatment Survey, 2013 (2014).
https://www.rainn.org/statistics/children-and-teens
Look at the silver lining: if ordinary women can get high-tipping jobs by being in great shape, think what this will do for the obesity epidemic in the US.
Curious: do the courts also have “Sweeps Week?”
Rather than pass yet another law that’s darn near impossible to enforce, I think the best thing to do, if someone disagrees with what the young lady’s are doing, is don’t buy anything at the Mall. Problem solved.
Next!
They are not malls. They are kiosks right next to the side walk. For some reason I don’t want my kids walking by open prostitution. Your mileage may vary.
LMAO, open prostitution, seriously, a girl in a swimsuit serving coffee is prostitution. Or are you implying that all of them are guilty because a few…very few I might add….were breaking the law?
If they were just serving coffee no one would care. No one said serving coffee in a bikini was prostitution.
“alleging violations of their rights to free expression and privacy.”
Privacy? What privacy? I can see free expression and exhibition but there is anything but privacy in those little outfits that you would see on any beach.
It is exactly like having johns get blow jobs in their cars in front of schools houses and playgrounds. Except it’s the horn dog reaching into the booth. Any child glancing over can and will see it. The girls also expose themselves and this has also been caught on camera.
Strange, why is it you seem to believe all women are prostitutes?
“For some reason I don’t want my kids walking by open prostitution.”
“It is exactly like having johns get blow jobs in their cars in front of schools houses and playgrounds”
“Every single one of these places have girls who will let customers grope them for tips.”
Seek help.
No I do not believe all women are prostitutes. Prostitutes are prostitutes. If this were just about being in a bikini I wouldn’t care. It isn’t. These bikini baristas are caught all the time engaging in prostitution.
I know one of the young ladies who is involved in this. She is open about what it is and what they do.
The reason I keep mentioning the prostitution is because that is what is going on and that is what the laws are trying to stop. No one cares about the bikinis, no one cares about the coffee, no one cares about anything except the crime involved and what it does to a neighborhood.
Quit trying to make this about me.
“……ahhhhh that was great…..now get back in there and teach those kiddies how to stretch condom over a banana
A Camera? Really? Do you have the link?
Why can’t I get clients like this?
Clients like that may very well be your accusers in the future…
Forty years in the future.
It is truly amazing how a story about girls in bikinis generates so much traffic while “The World Ends Tomorrow” would get but a few.
Sex sells. Kind of always been that way.
The media is still glorifying murderers like Bonnie Parker (she was actually kind of homely) and Clyde Barrow (Barrow murdered 13 people.)
New Bonnie and Clyde photos show notorious criminals in the days before and after death:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/12/06/unearthed-photo-shows-bonnie-and-clydes-embrace-right-before-bloody-death.html
Imagine if James Comey ran the FBI at the time of these two? They could have bought Comey off like hillary klinton did. If Mueller was around, he could have driven their getaway car.
Hillbilly Hotties heh…..wonder if I can get a cuppa hot chicory there……
I don’t like this. Whatever happened to ‘Community Standards’, or are we going to enforce top-down conformity for just about everything? Whether or not I agree with letting women wear whatever at their work-place, I recognize it really is none of my business, rightfully so.
A good ruler of thumb for indecency laws is that if a costume may be worn lawfully at the beach or a public pool, then it can LAWFULLY be worn anywhere. I am sure that the State of Washington , as well as the ton involved, has laws and ordinances regarding places which constitute a public nuisance. There are also laws against prostitution. I’m sure thaat the town is capable of shutting down any of these businesses which constitute a public nuisance without an unconstitutional dress coe ordinance.
But, in the current era where all women are the innocent victims of male sexual aggression, let’s take a look at the reasons for this dress code. These women are dressing this way to EXPLOIT men by appealing to the male libido. They would not dress in a provocative manner to go to the bank, the supermarket, the dentist or their child’s school. The costume does not serve any significant protective purpose. As the waitresses are not engaged in sporting activities where a minimal amount of clothing is advantageous. They are serving coffee. So, why wear a sexually provocative outfit? To attract a male clientele by appealing to the male sexual libido. These women are preying upon men. They are predators. Now, this is not illegal. But, can anyone imaging th reaction if the male customers demanded that a woman strip down to a provocative piece of swimwear to sell coffee?
“unconstitutional dress code ordinance”. Let’s not get carried away here, I’m sure Cicero had nothing either way to say regarding bikinis and Natural Law.