I fulfilled my civic duty today and voted. I usually don't care about primaries, but this one was important for Scottsdale citizens because of the so-called "Strip Club Ban". Basically, the city council rewrote the sexually-oriented businesses rules so that no girls can be nude and no girls can be within four feet of a patron. This means that dancers have to wear underwear and lap dances are banned. These new rules will effectively put Scottsdale strip clubs out of business, which is exactly what the city council wants. They can't ban strip clubs outright because that would be illegal, so they've attempted to cripple them. It's no coincidence that ASU is building a new high-tech research park within a mile from both strip clubs. No council member will admit that this is the motivation for the new rules, but most people supporting it have recognized its predicted results.

The strip clubs are fighting back and got a resolution on the ballot: Prop. 401. I voted to keep the rules the way they were before the city council got involved. Why, you wonder? Aren't strip clubs degrading to women and associated with criminal activity? Yes, that's true to some extent, but that's not the issue here. Strip clubs are perfectly legal, but what the city council is trying to do is not. The new rules are an attempt to legally accomplish what the council cannot do outright. The new rules take away the freedom of a business to fully operate. The new rules are unfair to patrons of Scottsdale clubs because they remove the primary reasons for going to strip clubs. Even if you are morally opposed to strip clubs, you can see how this is an unfair situation and should be struck down. There is a big difference between saying "I believe strip clubs are bad and I would never go to one" and "I believe strip clubs are bad and I don't want anybody to be able to go to one". This is just another example of politicians pushing their moral agenda into people's private lives.