Nightclub: 'Girls Gone Wild' flashing a 1st Amendment right

A popular Colorado Springs nightclub that was punished by the city's liquor board with a 10-day suspension of its liquor license after several women exposed their breasts during a rowdy "Girls Gone Wild" filming is appealing the decision.

An attorney representing the owners of 13 Pure, 217 E. Pikes Peak Ave., said women flashing their breasts is protected by the First Amendment.

"It's our position that it's constitutionally protected conduct," Denver-based attorney Mike Gross said Thursday.

But prosecuting attorney Scott Patlin said the nightclub violated local and state laws.

The city's liquor ordinance prohibits "touching, caressing or fondling the breasts" and "exposing to public view the female breast below the top of the areola" at a licensed liquor establishment.

"There are a total of 10 counts," Patlin said. "One of them involved fondling. The other nine involved nudity."

The City Attorney's Office had recommended "between 30 days suspension and revocation" of the club's liquor license, Patlin said.

"At this time, the people of the state of Colorado have made this conduct illegal," he said.

"If they wish the conduct to be illegal, we will continue to pursue it and enforce the law."

A hearing on the appeal is scheduled for 9 a.m. today in 4th Judicial District Court.

The suspension stems from a "Girls Gone Wild" event at the nightclub Aug. 13. The "Girls Gone Wild" franchise has made millions of dollars selling mail-order videos and DVDs of young women in bars and on beaches flashing their breasts and other private parts and engaging in sexual acts.

Police, who learned about the event on the club's MySpace page days earlier, decided to conduct an undercover operation to determine whether the club was complying with city ordinances and state liquor laws, said Sgt. Richard DuVall, who heads the Police Department's Liquor Enforcement Unit.

DuVall said the unit periodically conducts compliance audits.

"When you see something like ‘Girls Gone Wild' come to town, we know what they're about; we know who they are; we know the kind of filming that they purport to do," he said.

"If that was occurring inside the club, we knew that would be a violation, so we felt it was our duty to check it out and make sure there weren't any violations occurring," he said.

Throughout the night, police observed several women flash their breasts while cameras were rolling.

According to police documents (for the Colorado Springs Police Department Offense Report go here), co-owner Michael Laughlin, club manager Denise Leonard and other employees saw what was happening but didn't attempt to stop it.

"Each time one of these events would occur, it was obvious," documents state. "The camera crew would start to film girls dancing and males in the crowd would begin to cheer and shout encouragement to the females to ‘Take it off!!'"

Laughlin declined to comment about the Aug. 13 incident while the Liquor and Beer Licensing Board's decision is under appeal. But he said he was disappointed by the number of days the club's liquor license was suspended.

"It's a huge financial loss beyond any scope that we could imagine," he said.

Gross said Girls Gone Wild had agreed to film any nudity in a bus parked nearby.

"Apparently those instructions weren't followed," he said.

But Gross said the liquor board's 10-day suspension is excessive.

"Nobody (in the nightclub) was there that didn't want to be there," he said.

The following night, police went to the Mile High Saloon, 5943 Delmonico Drive, to observe another "Girls Gone Wild" filming.

The Mile High Saloon is owned by some of the same people who own 13 Pure, and management had arranged for "Girls Gone Wild" to visit both establishments on consecutive nights, DuVall said.

Police didn't observe any nudity inside the Mile High Saloon the second night.

Gross, the attorney who filed the appeal, said Colorado Springs residents "should feel safe" if police are "spending time enforcing naked breasts."

"There must not be a whole lot of crime going on," he said.