A strip club in Boise, Idaho has found an artful way to prance past a city law that prohibits full nudity.
On what it calls Art Club Nights, the Erotic City strip club charges customers $15 for a sketch pad, pencil, and a chance to see completely naked women dancers.
In 2001 the Boise City Council passed an ordinance banning total nudity in public unless it had “serious artistic merit”—an exemption meant to apply to plays, dance performances and art classes.
“We have a lot of people drawing some very good pictures,” said Erotic City owner Chris Teague, who has posted many of the drawings around the club.
Teague said he got the idea when a customer asked if he could get in for free to sketch the dancers. Realizing that “art classes” were exempt from the law, Teague decided to bill Mondays and Tuesdays as art nights, and let the dancers go without their G-strings and pasties.
In the two months since they began, Art Club Nights have drawn full crowds of 60 people but no police citations, he said.
