Seated in her recliner in November, Avi Colunga had just finished feeding her infant when she saw the “horrify[ing]” news. Since 2018, Colunga, 25, has worked at XTC Cabaret in Dallas as an entertainer. Before that, she had bartended. But scrolling through Instagram with her daughter Xeppelin in her lap, Colunga came across an article about a proposed Dallas ordinance that could upend her life.
But on Wednesday, Dallas City Council will meet to vote on the ordinance, and if it passes, Colunga’s work hours will be slashed. “I feel like we have a right to work at night; it shouldn’t be taken away from us,” Colunga said.Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia and some City Council members have argued that the proposed ordinance would work to combat crime, but Colunga doesn't buy that argument.
Of course, nightclub families aren’t just composed of entertainers and security; managers, bartenders, waitresses, cooks and valets are often on the payroll, too. If passed, the ordinance would push Colunga and many others back into lower-paying gigs with more restrictive hours. Bazaldua and others who back these regulations in Dallas say it’s about stomping out crime, not sex work.
The committee later held a public hearing on the change and voted to bring it back for consideration. Berrells said, “If someone is under 21 years of age, they cannot work. If this report has a recent prostitution [charge], they cannot work. And if anyone has a conviction for any kind of sex crime involving children, they cannot work.”
Nudity and “the state of nudity” were also defined in the code as “appearance of a bare buttock, anus, male genitals, female genitals or female breast.” In 1996, a district court sided with the SOBs, saying the new definitions for nudity, semi-nudity and simulated nudity violated the First Amendment. Later that year, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision.
Albright called the business the most regulated industry in Dallas and said if the city is trying to go after bad apples in the industry, there are already ways to do that. He's confident this is a fight that Dallas can’t win. “One of the basis that the Supreme Court has found to strike down these ordinances is that they’re content based,” he told the Quality of Life, Arts and Culture Committee. “I’m gonna tell you, you’re gonna lose.
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