SEX, LAWS, AND COVER-UPS

SEX Dallas’s new Sexually Oriented Business ordinance, which bans SOBs within 1,000 feet of a school, home, park, church, or another SOB, has withstood legal tests all the way to the Supreme Court. Now, according to a pleased-as-punch ELVIN ARNOLD, president of the Dallas Association for Decency, “the byword is cover up or clear out.” Dancers at most area strip joints, including the popular Million Dollar Saloon on Northwest Highway, have added pasties and substituted bikini bottoms for the more revealing “T-back” bottoms.

However, it’s still smonkey business as usual at seven other “gentlemen’s clubs,” among them the original and famously lucrative Million Dollar Saloon on Greenville, which is easily within 1,000 feet of residences. The clubs were granted a one- year exemption from the ordinance, while 26 others were denied an exemption.

“The difference,” says Assistant City At- torney DON POSTELL, “was that in the case of the Greenville location, few neighborhood peo- ple or surrounding busi- nesses showed up to voice any concerns. That’s been the case with most of the exceptions.”

Attorney ROGER ALBRIGHT, who successfully represented two cabarets seeking exemptions, built his defense around photographs taken at a city-approved beach party at City Hall Plaza. The revelers, Albright pointed out, were certainly exposing their share of skin. “If these types of garments are good enough for City Hall,11 he gripes, “they should be good enough for my clients.”