Fun_People Archive
24 Apr
Ridiculous or Sublime?

Date: Sun, 24 Apr 94 01:21:21 PDT
To: Fun_People
Subject: Ridiculous or Sublime?

Forwarded-by: elshaw@MIT.EDU (Libby Shaw)
Forwarded-by: Brian E. Bradley <beb@media.mit.edu>

    LOS ANGELES (Reuter) - A nightclub has been ordered to close
down its main attraction, a shower enclosure where nude dancers
cavort for male customers, because the enclosure has no
wheelchair access.
    Los Angeles officials said the club discriminates against
wheelchair-bound people because of lack of access to the shower,
denying them an equal opportunity to work as nude dancers.
    Ron Shigeta, head of the Disabled Access Division of the
city's Department of Building and Safety, said the law is the
law, no matter how ridiculous it might seem to some people.
    ``I can't argue one way or the other whether a disabled
person would want to be up there performing. But if an
able-bodied person could have been up there doing it, a disabled
person should have been able to, also,'' Shigeta told the Los
Angeles Daily News.
    He said the shower was considered a stage, and a stage had
to be accessible to the handicapped.
    ``They built something that the physically disabled cannot
use. The law doesn't allow you to discriminate, and that's what
it comes down to, you're denying people the opportunity,'' he
added.
    Before the attraction was shut down patrons at the Odd Ball
Cabaret paid $20 to sit inside a frosted glass enclosure and
watch a nude dancer bump and grind under a shower for about five
minutes.
    Other patrons, who only paid the $5 entry fee, merely saw
the shadow of the dancer through the glass.
    Shigeta could not be reached for comment Thursday but a
spokesman for the Department of Building and Safety confirmed
that the shower attraction had been closed down.
    An employee at the nightclub said the club had no comment on
the matter.

© 1994 Peter Langston