NEW ORLEANS (AP) - A lawsuit challenging Louisiana’s new law setting 21 as the minimum age for strippers will stay in New Orleans.
U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier on Friday rejected a motion by the state’s alcohol control commissioner to move the case from the New Orleans-based federal court district to the one in Baton Rouge, where the law was passed by the Legislature last summer.
Plaintiffs in the case - three women ages 18, 19 and 20 - wanted the case to stay in New Orleans. They said New Orleans is home to most of Louisiana’s “adult entertainment venues” and that two of the three women live there.
Barbier agreed.
Lawmakers called the law a tool to fight human trafficking. The plaintiffs say the law violates their right to free expression, deprives them of income and discriminates based on age and gender. They also say the law could have the unintended consequence of driving young women who would lose their jobs because of the law into prostitution.
The suit was filed in September.
Barbier has temporarily blocked enforcement of the law, which lawmakers applied to any “entertainers whose breasts or buttocks are exposed to view.”
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