On Strip Measure, the Sides Are Four Feet Apart

That, of course, is the point.

With the enthusiastic approval of Mayor Greg Nickels, the ordinance was approved last year on a 5 to 4 vote of the City Council. The vote came after a federal court tossed out the city's moratorium on new strip clubs -- a rule that had been in effect for 17 years and had limited the number of strip clubs here to just four.

By comparison, nearby Portland, Ore., which is slightly smaller than Seattle and much less fretful about lap dancing, has more than 50 strip clubs.

Nickels has said that strip clubs here have links to organized crime. As evidence, he has cited a single 2003 incident when club owners were accused of illegally trying to influence the City Council to get permission to build a parking lot. A judge later dismissed the charges.

The four-foot rule is on the books in a number of suburbs around Seattle and has been effective in closing down their strip clubs.

Although studies in several major cities have linked strip-club zones with increased crime rates, there is little evidence in Seattle to suggest its four scattered clubs are connected in any significant way to neighborhood crime.

The four-foot rule has won support from the Seattle Times, the largest newspaper in Washington. In an editorial, it endorsed the ordinance, saying that "grinding away on customers in the dark for tips" is not lawful expression of free speech.

Not everyone in Seattle is so sure. The four-foot rule has triggered what appears to be a growing populist backlash, as prosperous, liberal, highly educated, environmentally correct Seattle worries that its goody-goody tendencies are running amok.

Dan Savage, editor of the Stranger, an alternative weekly, said in his blog that city leaders should turn their attention to the problems of public schools and mass transit and leave alone the "the hard-up guys . . . tossing twenties at pretty girls."

The Seattle Weekly, another alternative newspaper, ran a cover story with this headline: "Big Nanny Is Watching You." A letter this week in that newspaper laments that Seattle, as it obsessively listens to National Public Radio and drinks too much all-organic coffee, is becoming "uptight and self-righteous."

Owners of strip clubs couldn't agree more . They managed to place a referendum on the ballot that allows voters to approve or veto the lap-dance ordinance the city council passed last year. Enforcement has been delayed, pending the vote. Club owners have spent $850,000 on ads urging voters to say no to the "morality police."

"This ordinance sends the wrong message about the open-minded, progressive city we want Seattle to be," said Tim Killian, manager of the referendum.

The backlash is even finding legs in the city's establishment. City Council member Richard McIver, who last year proposed the four-foot rule, says he now wonders if its enforcement could hurt Seattle's reputation as a desirable destination for young people.

The "nanny state" image issue is upsetting city residents, McIver said, and he predicted that the four-foot rule could be voted down.

At Déjà Vu, the lap dancers are pessimistic. A 19-year-old blonde who calls herself Cali said she is making contingency plans. A college sophomore studying communications, she said she pays the $25,000-a-year tuition at Seattle University with earnings from the club.

"If they pass the four-foot rule," she said, "I'll probably just have to go to community college."