(TheLastPatriotNews.com) – “Bikini baristas” in Washington state are allowed to wear revealing clothing after a federal judge ruled against a city regulation ordering them to cover up their bodies.
The “bikini barista” lawsuit was filed by the owner of a barista stand in Everett, Washington, called “Hillbilly Hotties,” and by several employees. It challenged the city’s dress code ordinance.
The ordinance adopted in 2017 mandates covering the upper and lower body of “quick service” workers, The Daily Herald reported, as cited by The National Review.
The plaintiffs, however, argued that the city ordinance violated their rights under the First Amendment since their clothing was a way of “self-expression.
US District Judge Ricardo S. Martinez in Seattle ruled that the city of Everett’s dress code was in breach of equal protection stipulated in the constitutions of the United States and the state of Washington.
“The record shows this Ordinance was passed in part to have an adverse impact on female workers at bikini barista stands,” Martinez wrote in a 19-page ruling, arguing that the ordinance was influenced by gender-based discrimination.
“There is evidence in the record that the bikini barista profession, clearly a target of the ordinance, is entirely or almost entirely female. It is difficult to imagine how this ordinance would be equally applied to men and women in practice,” the judge elaborated.
He noted the Everett ban was on clothing “typically worn by women rather than men” – including midriff and scoop-back shirts and bikinis.
“Assuming the owners of bikini barista stands are unable or unwilling to enforce this dress code, at some point law enforcement will be asked to measure exposure of skin by some method,” the ruling stated.
“This ‘encourage(s) a humiliating, intrusive, and demoralizing search on women, disempowering them and stripping them of their freedom,'” it added.
At the same time, Judge Martinez dismissed other claims by the barista against the city of Everett’s “lewd conduct ordinance.”
That other ordinance defined a lewd act to include exposure of “more than one-half of the part of the female breast located below the top of the areola,” “the genitals, anus, bottom one-half of the anal cleft or any portion of the areola or nipple of the female breast.”
Thus, the ordinance that made it a crime to facilitate lewd conduct remained in place, with the court ruling in favor of the Hillbilly Hotties only about their dress code challenge.
As per the ruling, the city of Everett has 14 days to discuss the following steps with the plaintiffs.
A federal judge has set the bikinis free.
That judge ruled in favor of a bikini barista stand, striking down the city's dress code ordinance that required the bikini clad workers to cover up.https://t.co/aZ0o6mS8X4
— National Review (@NRO) October 30, 2022
