Last week, days after dancers took to the streets of New Orleans to protest recent police raids on the city’s strip clubs, the state agency that led them was in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals fending off a challenge to a Louisiana law barring 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds from working as strip club dancers. In 2016, long before the raids, three dancers who lost their jobs because of the age ban sued the Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control (ATC) arguing that new age limits violated their labor rights. The age ban, known officially as “Act No. 395,” passed the state legislature in 2016 with little opposition, pushed by social service agencies that alleged a link between strip clubs and sex trafficking — the same allegations that prompted January’s raids.
“New Orleans Strip Club Workers Battle “Age Ban” in Federal Court” by Melissa Gira Grant for The Appeal