The city of Sandy Springs won a Georgia Supreme Court decision against a local strip club on June 18. Along with a recent U.S. Supreme Court denial of review of the city’s adult business laws, the decision paves the way for the city to shut down three local strip clubs.
The state case involved a club at 5275 Roswell Road that has gone through various name changes during the decade-long battle and is current known as the Doll House and Coronet Club. The club’s owners had challenged city zoning restrictions and a ban on alcohol sales in such clubs. The state Supreme Court rejected those arguments in a unanimous decision written by Justice Britt Grant, who has local family ties and has been nominated to a federal court judgeship by President Trump.
Alan Begner, an attorney for the club, declined to comment, saying he was still reviewing the decision.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a legal challenge against the city laws brought by two other strip clubs – Flashers and Mardi Gras – and an adult bookstore called Inserection. The city moved quickly to seek a legal order for those businesses to shut down in their current locations.
All of the cases originate in a 2006 controversy, when the bookstore and strip clubs challenged new city codes. Since 2009, the codes have been defended by Scott Bergthold, a Tennessee attorney who specializes in municipal laws cracking down on sexually-oriented businesses.
The city has said it has no problem with adult entertainment per se, but argues that it produces crime as a side effect that needs to be controlled. The businesses say the city’s laws are motivated by a bias against their work and intended to make it impossible for them to operate.