'The need hasn't disappeared, by any stretch of the imagination,' Skelton says. John Skelton, a soft-spoken land-use planner with the city's Department of Design, Construction and Land Use (DCLU), has followed the strip club story since the late 1970s, when Seattle first began regulating adult theaters and cabarets. As Seattle's attention has focused lately on Rick's, the Lake City strip joint whose owner and employees donated tens of thousands to city council incumbents in an apparent exchange for a parking lot expansion, the real scandal-a 'temporary' moratorium that has morphed into a de facto and possibly illegal ban on new strip clubs-has gone virtually unexamined for nearly 15 years. But in all that time, no analysis or review-of the 'temporary' moratorium, of the numerous court cases cited in the moratorium legislation, or of similar laws in other cities-has ever been done.Ī 'work plan' for 'developing and evaluating' changes to the moratorium has similarly foundered, and a promised study has been stalled since 1988, when the moratorium first passed.

The council went on to cite the need for review every year between 19, when it voted-in what has become a springtime ritual-to extend the moratorium, now stretching into its 15th year. In 1990, the council extended the moratorium for another year, again citing the need for further analysis.

Back in 1989, the Seattle City Council voted to extend the city's year-old temporary moratorium on strip clubs, citing the need for 'additional analysis and evaluation' of the city's adult-entertainment regulations.

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