Chippendales can still perform, but must keep shirts on

JEFF PARROTT
Tribune staff writer

The show will go on, but it won't quite be the same show.

The Chippendales, the world-famous men's erotic dance act, were scheduled to take the stage today at 8 or 8:30 p.m. at Time Out, a sports bar in the North Village Mall. But the plans had been uncertain until late Friday.

Citizens for Community Values, the nonprofit anti-pornography group that has fought to rid South Bend of its strip bars, Friday sent a "citizen complaint and notice of violation" regarding the planned show to local governments, police and news media.

The group said the bar would violate the county's adult business ordinance if it held the show without having an adult business license; it would break zoning rules that prohibit "adult entertainment" within 500 feet of residential areas; and it might even violate Indiana's public indecency law.

Don Fozo, county building commissioner, said his staff posted a notice on the closed bar's door early Friday, warning about the residential zoning issue. By Friday evening, Time Out's owners told The Tribune that dancers will keep their shirts on and will not strip down to anything less than boxer-type shorts.

"Every law will be abided by, every ordinance will be abided by," said co-owner Ruth Claeys. "We should not have any problems at all."

Chippendales travels to more than 200 cities a year, most recently in Traverse City, Mich. Typically, the men dance and strip down to their bare chests and skimpy bikini bottoms, to the delight of their female audience.

Claeys said she didn't know how the planned changes to their act will affect ticket sales, but she remained hopeful.

It's not the first time Chippendales has run into trouble in Michiana. In 2003, their show at Heartland was canceled before it began after the city attorney advised the club that an apartment building across the street meant a residential land use was within 500 feet.

Also in 2003, organizers of another exotic male dance show at the Palace, a now-defunct bar that operated in the same space as Time Out but under different owners, also canceled the show because of the same zoning issue.

Story taken from here

This makes me so angry. If the club had checked the facts and the law before hand, the guys wouldn't have had to pay for travel to South Bend just have get cancelled. Many of the guys were either on their way to South Bend or already there when the show was cancelled.

Bare chests are nothing to be ashamed of, especially the Chipp's bare chests. LOL!! Onstage, the guys wear the same or sometimes more than many men wear to the local pools and beaches