After a long hard day at work, Al Bundy – like many hardworking New Yorkers – should be able to enjoy a brew along with an adult dancer.
He would be disappointed in Gov. Cuomo signing the proposed “Bikini Bar Bill” into law.
Adult entertainment, including lap dances, pole dancers and topless bars, have been part of many men’s right of passage transcending generations.
If anyone ever conducted an anonymous survey, results would reveal many members and staffers of city, state and federal public officials just like Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos have in their younger days frequented an adult entertainment establishment with topless woman offering lap dances.
I seriously doubt that Gov. Cuomo was studying to become a priest in his younger days or Queens state Assembly member Aravella Simotas’ a nun. Can he say with a straight face that during college or later in life that he never attended any fraternity, family or friend’s bachelor party where adult entertainment was present?
He never participated with any adult entertainers at such events but like everyone else there, he was just “an innocent observer lurking in the background.” Ditto for Simotas attending any sorority, family or friends bachelorette party where adult entertainment was present. She never participated with any adult entertainers at such events but like everyone else there, she was just “an innocent observer lurking in the background.”
Despite the best efforts of both government and the moral majority social police to outlaw adult entertainment establishments and services, (like alcohol prohibition in the 1920s) it has been a total failure.
Gov. Cuomo, along with locally elected officials such as Simotas and others who opposed the Queen of Hearts and Racks of Steinway Street in Astoria, Queens from obtaining a license from the state Liquor Authority need to loosen up, hoist a pint and get a lap dance or two at a local neighborhood adult club.
The owners of the Queen of Hearts cabaret, Racks of Steinway or any adult entertainment establishment pay taxes like the rest of us. They also provide gainful employment to cooks, bartenders, waitresses, dancers and security personnel, along with those who deliver beverage and food supplies.
All are neighbors, who also pay taxes and are trying to earn a living.
Many customers are also neighbors patronizing the establishment on a voluntary basis. Walk down any street or visit any park during a hot summer day, and you can see many beautiful women enjoying life dressed so casual they leave little to the imagination.
How disappointing to see Cuomo, Simotas and members of the state Legislature throwing their lot in with the so-called moral majority social police and politically extreme reactionary conservatives who attempt to use government rules and regulations to impose their own moral values on others.
I would volunteer to be an inspector for either the state Liquor Authority, Departments of Taxation or Consumer Affairs to insure our own dancers are “Made in New York,” their ample assets are “100 percent all natural” and they are declaring all their tips as income, but my wife will not let me.
What consenting adults consume, inhale, perform, read or view in the privacy of their own home or private social or adult club isn’t the concern of government.
Individual economic and civil liberties prosper best when government stays out of both the bedroom and marketplace.
Larry Penner
Great Neck
