Diva’s could face fines if dancers perform in the nude

BANGOR – Wednesday was a big day for Diane Cormier-Youngs.

“Are you coming in tonight?” the owner of Diva’s Gentlemen’s Club excitedly asks a middle-aged man who strolled into the bar Wednesday afternoon. “Tonight, it’s fully nude.”

Indeed, dancers at the State Street club began baring it all Wednesday night, challenging a city ordinance that prohibits nude dancing at the downtown club.

“I’m not doing it to upset anybody,” said Cormier-Youngs, who is contesting the constitutionality of the ordinance that prohibits nude dancing in most of the city and wherever alcohol is served.

“I’m doing what in my heart I feel is the right thing to do and what the state constitution allows,” she continued, noting that nothing in state law prohibits an establishment that serves alcohol from offering nude entertainment. “I’m not doing anything wrong,” she said.

But this is Bangor, and city officials would disagree.

The Diva’s dancers now can strip down to nothing less than a bikini in order to stay in compliance with the city rules adopted in 1999.

But a flier distributed Tuesday advertising a “full nude stage show” at Diva’s every Wednesday through Saturday night, beginning May 1, caught the attention of city officials, who were disappointed with the club owner’s decision to violate the ordinance.

“Our position has been clear,” Bangor Mayor Michael Crowley said. “If [Cormier-Youngs] is violating the ordinance, we have a responsibility to enforce it.”

Wednesday’s stage show – similar to an “act of civil disobedience” in June of last year – could prove costly for the club owner.

A District Court judge fined the establishment $2,000 in January for deliberately disobeying the city’s rules, which Cormier-Youngs contends violate her right to freedom of expression and present an undue hardship to her business.

However, Judge Ronald Russell last week stayed the fine as well as his order to stop violating the city ordinance pending a review by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.

In Russell’s January decision, he found that because the city ordinance did allow nude entertainment in some – albeit remote – areas of the city, it did not constitute a complete ban on the practice and therefore passed constitutional muster.

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court is set to review the decision sometime this summer, with oral argument tentatively scheduled for the end of the month, Assistant City Solicitor John Hamer said.

The case could face postponement, however, with Cormier-Youngs’ Lewiston attorney, Charles G. Williams III, temporarily barred from practicing law in the state while he awaits trial before the state supreme court on client complaints that could lead to his disbarment.

Diva’s is also challenging the ordinance in federal court.

U.S. District Court Judge George Singal postponed his decision on the ordinance’s constitutionality until the state appeals court rules on the matter.

Wednesday’s unexpected stage show marked the latest chapter in the continuing battle between Diva’s and the city.

But city officials are hardly unified on the issue, with the city’s Board of Appeals chastising the City Council last year for what it found to be the council’s “arbitrary and capricious” rejection of a routine permit for the club.

The permit, which was renewed by the council last week, allowed Diva’s dancers to don bikinis and presumably come into compliance with the city’s rules.