Story Archive

Coffee, Tea or Me?

The city of Everett, Wash., is still fighting “bikini baristas” — scantily-clad women, usually not even wearing as much as a bikini, serving coffee from roadside huts. They’re really “drive-thru brothels,” the city says, so last summer the city council passed an ordinance requiring all “quick service” restaurant employees to wear a minimum of a tank top and shorts, rather than the body paint, stickers, and g-strings the “bikini” gals wear. A second law, prohibiting “facilitating lewd conduct,” is aimed at the shop owners. The shops fought back, filing a federal lawsuit. “We are confident this will be overturned due to the gross civil rights violations,” says Schuyler Lifschultz of Hillbilly Hotties. Federal Judge Marsha Pechman issued a preliminary injunction against the two laws, saying they were probably “too vague” to stand. The city is appealing the ruling. “The same factors that cause illegal conduct to flourish at bikini barista stands also make it extremely difficult and expensive for law enforcement to try to stop this illegal conduct with its current tools,” said Everett police Sgt. James Collier. (RC/Everett Herald) ...Obsession with current tools is pretty much the crux of the problem.